Top tennis stars live luxurious lives, but playing sport at an elite level has its setbacks. While natural talent is certainly needed to be successful in any sport, it is not solely enough to carry an athlete to glory on the world stage. Substantial time needs to be spent on training, but this can take its toll.

Players have to sacrifice spending time with friends and family, starve themselves of recreational time and even miss out on forging loving relationships with a significant other... something Carlos Alcaraz knows only too well. At just 22, the Spaniard is one of the sport's greatest stars. He's the world No. 2 in the ATP rankings with five Grand Slams to his name. However, Alcaraz's strict training regime and almost-endless travel has impacted his ability to build a romantic relationship.

Alcaraz was asked by The Sunday Times last year if he was dating anyone, and replied: "No, I am single. I am looking for someone. It can be difficult as a tennis player to meet the right person because you are travelling all the time."

Alcaraz also shared a similar sentiment with Vogue a year earlier, telling the publication: "It's complicated, never staying in one place. It's hard to find the person who can share things with you if you're always in different parts of the world."

It's not known if anything has changed for Alcaraz, who recently won a second French Open title with a win over world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, although he hasn't been linked with anyone publicly.

Alcaraz isn't the only star who has explained that the sport has restricted relationships. Emma Raducanu previously recalled how her parents banned her from seeing a boyfriend in the formative years of her career.

Speaking about the rules set by her parents, the 22-year-old previously told The Times: "My parents were very much against [boyfriends] as it interfered with training. When I was younger, I wasn't even allowed to hang out with my girl friends. A lot of the time I was very resentful, but it made me very confident and comfortable in my own company."

After reaching adulthood, Raducanu began dating Carlo Agostinelli, with the two going public in 2023. However, things ended the following year, with sources telling the Sun that the relationship had "run its course".

And it's not just the new age of tennis stars who have had trouble with romances either. Andy Murray recently explained that the sport had a major impact on his honeymoon with wife Kim Sears. The two tied the knot in a stunning ceremony at Dunblane Cathedral back in 2015 before jetting off to Barcelona.

However, Murray was only able to spend a few nights with Kim because their honeymoon coincided with a strict training block - something he regrets and is trying to make up for. Speaking to GQ, he said: "When we got married, our honeymoon was in Barcelona, and I was doing a training block.

"Essentially, we got to spend a couple of nights with each other, but I was practising during the day, training and going to the gym and doing all my physio work. [A honeymoon] is very important for most couples.

"Maybe for her it was too, but she was willing to sacrifice that to allow me to chase my goals. She's super important to everything I achieved, so now I'm trying my best to make up for all that."

He added: "She's been a huge support and a massive, massive part of my career. When you're playing, you don't always appreciate that. I think a lot of individual athletes - me included - would be selfish at times. You think a lot about yourself and your own performance, and your mood is reflective of whether you've had a good match. Say, I won. I'm in a good mood. I lost, I'm in a bad mood.

"It's not really fair on the people around you. But even at the end, when I was struggling physically and was not winning many matches, and we had young children, Kim was always so supportive of me continuing to play because she knew I loved the sport and loved playing."