The Italian and the Spaniard could represent the next big duel after Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Friendly rivalry: Jannik Sinner (l.) and Carlos Alcaraz.
Ryan Pierse / Getty
The tennis season is only four months old. The Race to Turin, the annual ranking, which gives an indication of the players’ form, shows an extraordinary picture. Novak Djokovic doesn’t lead them. The soon-to-be 37-year-old Serb is only in 10th place with 1,310 points and would therefore not be among the eight players who are allowed to play for the last big prize money pot of the year in the final highlight of the season. He has only played 15 games this season and lost 4 of them. He is still waiting for a title.
Jannik Sinner takes first place in this ranking. The 22-year-old South Tyrolean started the season with a series of 16 wins and his first major title in Melbourne before Carlos Alcaraz stopped him in the semi-finals in Indian Wells. This week he had to forfeit the tournament in Madrid before his second appearance due to hip problems. He said on social platforms: “I am disappointed that I had to withdraw. But my hip has been causing me problems for some time. On the advice of the doctors, I and my team decided not to continue playing and make the problem even bigger.”
Rekordmatch in New York
But the 20-year-old Alcaraz has also lost some of the momentum that propelled him to his first Wimbledon victory and to the top of the world rankings a year ago. Sinner against Alcaraz, that could become a duel that will shape men’s tennis in the coming years. The friendly rivalry between the two is already being compared to that of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. But the two young stars are still a long way from the success that made Federer and Nadal dominate men’s tennis for almost two decades.
Alcaraz has won two major titles (US Open 2022, Wimbledon 2023), Sinner one (Melbourne 2024). In the world rankings they occupy positions 2 (Sinner) and 3 (Alcaraz). In the comparison of direct encounters, the score is 4:4. They fought the most sensational duel in the quarterfinals of the US Open 2022, it went over five sets and only ended at 2:50 a.m. local time. No match has ever ended later in New York.
Sinner’s rise to the top of the world rankings began a year later, with a defeat against the German Alexander Zverev, which he himself describes as an eye-opener. He realized then that he had to accept mistakes as part of the game and live with them. With this knowledge, he won 20 of his last 22 matches in 2023 and the titles in Beijing and Vienna and also the Davis Cup. At the ATP finals he also beat Novak Djokovic in the group phase before failing in the final against the Serb. After the turn of the year, Sinner continued his successful streak in Melbourne. Since losing to Zverev at the US Open, he has won 36 of 40 games leading up to this week’s tournament in Madrid.
Soon to be number 1?
Sinner has also won three of four games against Novak Djokovic in the past few months. This is something like a certificate of maturity that shows that the 22-year-old Italian is ready to take over the reins. He can replace the Serbian at the top of the rankings at the French Open at the beginning of June at the latest. But it is already clear: the future in men’s tennis belongs to him and Carlos Alcaraz. The duel undoubtedly has the potential to shape the coming years in a similar way to how the encounters between Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have done over the past two decades.
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