In tennis, generational changes are occurring little by little and naturally. Throughout the performances of the Big 3 (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic) and Andy Murray at the peak of their form, there was no one who could surpass them: there were individual victories, but they dominated the circuit and the ranking included. exactly them. In the end, these players, the first three of whom are the greatest in tennis history, succumbed only to time and injury. And no one has ever managed to win the battle against time; each of the big 3 remained at the highest level until they were over 35 years old. According to the results of Roland Garros 2024, two tennis players born in the 21st century occupied the first and second lines of the ranking for the first time in history: Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Furthermore, for the first time in almost 20 years (since August 2004), the top two included two players who were not yet 23 years old: Roger Federer (1) and Andy Roddick (2). So what’s next for the men’s circuit?
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Comparing the achievements of Sinner and Alcaraz
Sinner and Alcaraz are practically peers. Carlos turned 21 on May 5, Yannick will celebrate his 23rd birthday on August 16. The difference of less than two years is quite insignificant, so we can safely classify them as a single generation of sneakers. At the moment, everything seems that this will be the main confrontation on the men’s circuit in the coming years. Both have already won Slams and became the first rackets in the world to win the Masters. Jannik Sinner also took the Davis Cup with his team (yes, not in the classic format anymore, but we can only accept that), including key victories over Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals: first in singles and then in pairs with Lorenzo Sonego when Djokovic was playing along with Miomir Kecmanovic. Soon Alcaraz and Sinner will attend the first Olympic Games of their lives, which will be held in Paris on the clay courts of Roland Garros, and before that they will play at Wimbledon, where Carlos will defend the title.
Let’s briefly compare the main achievements of both tennis players. Alcaraz has just won his third Slam and took it all on different surfaces: US Open 2022 on hard, Wimbledon 2023 on grass and Roland Garros 2024 on clay. In September 2022, immediately after his victory in New York, he became the youngest world number one in history and then also finished that season in first place in the rankings. Carlos also has five Masters titles to his name and has already won Indian Wells and Madrid twice. Furthermore, the Spaniard performs well in the finals: 14 titles in 18 attempts.
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Although Sinner is older, he was revealed a little later, so, at least for now, he has the role of playing catch-up. His first and so far only Grand Slam tournament was this year’s Australian Open, in the final of which he beat Daniil Medvedev 0:2 in straight sets. Yannick also won two Masters: Toronto 2023 and Miami 2024. By the way, his ratio of results in finals is actually the same as Carlos’s: 13 titles in 17 attempts. Furthermore, if Carlos lost only one major final (against Djokovic in Cincinnati 2023), Yannick had two defeats in the Miami finals (2021 and 2023), as well as in the final of the 2023 ATP Final Championship. first row, Alcaraz has so far spent a total of 36 weeks on it (this is the 16th result in tennis history), and Sinner has just reached the top: he is now in his first week. . However, it is unlikely that he will be in danger of losing his leadership in the near future. The difference with Carlos is almost 1,000 points and the Spaniard will have to defend his ATP-500 titles in London and Wimbledon. The Italian reached the Wimbledon semi-finals a year ago.
Sinner Jannik
Photo: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images
Interestingly, seven-time Slam champion Mats Wilander, who has worked as a television tennis expert for many years, believes that Alcaraz is overall stronger than Sinner. “Alcaraz has shown that he doesn’t need to play his best tennis to win. He will be able to win many Grand Slams thanks to his aggressive play and the courage he shows in important moments of matches. The result of the game always depends on his performance. Sinner is number one only for the computer. Alcaraz is stronger,” Wilander said in an interview with SportFace.
Personal confrontation of young stars.
Of course, Wilander has the right to his opinion and I personally like Carlos’s game more than Yannick’s, mainly because of his greater creativity and diversity, but we cannot help but admit that the Italian is now very good. Clay, by the way, is the least comfortable surface for him, however, Yannick adapted to it, showing excellent results there, including the semifinals of Roland Garros. This year, Sinner has so far won almost every tournament he has played in; the only exception was Indian Wells, in whose semifinals he was stopped by Alcaraz. The Italian improved a lot under the guidance of famous coach Darren Cahill, who worked with top players such as Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi, Andy Murray, Ana Ivanovic and Simona Halep. Progress has been especially notable over the past year, since last summer. By the way, an excellent litmus test is the story of his personal meetings with Daniil Medvedev. Since 2020, Yannick has been a convenient opponent for the Russian, he went 0-6 in head-to-head matches, but last fall in the Beijing final he beat him for the first time and from that moment on he really turned the tide. of the confrontation. Now the score is only 6-5 in favor of Medvedev. True, almost all of Sinner’s victories came in a fierce fight: only in the semifinals of Miami-2024 there was a defeat (6-1, 6-2).
Daniil Medvedev
Photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images
By the way, Yannick has the most tenacious confrontation with Carlos. The Spaniard now leads in personal matches 5-4 or 6-4 (depending on whether the 2019 Challenger match is taken into account; matches in these types of tournaments are not normally taken into account, nor in the rankings), and Tennis players regularly exchange mini-series of two victories. Since Alcaraz was the first to win, he is always slightly ahead, but Sinner always catches up to him. Furthermore, his fights are almost always tenacious and beautiful. I would especially like to highlight Carlos’ victory over Yannick in the quarterfinals of the US Open 2022. Sinner served to reach the semifinals in the fourth game and got a match point with his serve, but Alcaraz managed to recover that ball, make a backhand . break, win the set and then the match, and as a result, he became the winner of the tournament and the first racket in the world.
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Yannick himself valued their rivalry, as well as Alcaraz’s victory in Paris. “I am very happy for Carlos. Thanks to him I become a better player. Every time I lose to him in a match, I know I need to improve. My team and I are working hard on this and we look forward to meeting him again. Our rivalry is a little different than everyone else’s. I hope that in the future he can show that I have become a better player. “I’m looking forward to it,” CNBC quoted Sinner as saying.
Carlos Alcaraz
Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Who can form a new conditional Big 3 with Carlos and Yannick?
Of course, the times of the Big-3 have sunk into oblivion and will never return, but this does not prevent us from speculating a little about the new conditional Big-3. It is very possible that in a couple of years (or a little later) a new superstar will burst into men’s tennis – someone we don’t know yet – and, together with Alcaraz and Sinner, form a new generation of three. But if we take those who currently perform at the highest level, we can highlight several tennis players who have already achieved the best results or can improve even further to match the level of Carlos and Yannick, at least on their favorite surface.
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In fact, if we take difficult matches, we must first name Daniil Medvedev. It’s hard to believe that the Russian is capable of progressing enough on grass, and even more so on clay, to pose a serious threat to Alcaraz and Sinner, but on hard surfaces he is good enough for it. Yes, we need to find Yannick’s keys again, but Daniil beat Carlos himself in the semi-finals of last year’s US Open.
Alexander Zverev can definitely be a serious competitor on clay and hard courts; He only has problems on grass courts. However, the German has another problem, probably psychological. It is difficult to explain with anything else his frequent defeats at the top of the Slams in a bitter fight. If Zverev can somehow cope with it, he will be a real contender for the major titles: he has the game for it.
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Andrey Rublev is slightly inferior in terms of average level of play, but in his best form he can “knock down” practically any opponent on the court. The problem is that Andrei cannot maintain this form for a long time. And he is also hindered by the “crazies” on the court – who, by the way, were not actually in Madrid, and Rublev won the Masters there – and there is a problem with the majors, where he has already been eliminated 10 times in the quarterfinals. final and so far has not even reached the semi-finals.
I would also like to mention two Scandinavian tennis players: the Norwegian Casper Ruud and the Danish Holger Rune. Ruud, 25, has already been to three major finals, losing once to Nadal (RG 2022), Alcaraz (US Open 2022) and Djokovic (RG 2023), as well as in the Final Tournament final in 2022. Now Kasper He is one step away from the third consecutive final in Paris, and the course of his semifinal with Zverev was affected by his health: the Norwegian, like Arina Sabalenka before him, had stomach problems.
Rune has yet to make it past the quarterfinals of a Major, but he’s already been to this stage three times and recently turned 21. It is clear that Alcaraz is now the same age, but each opens at different ages and Holger still has more than enough time to progress. Lastly, I would also like to mention Stefanos Tsitsipas, although somehow I can’t believe the serious progress he has made now. There is a feeling that the Greek lacks a little attention to results, to winning at any cost; We are not talking, of course, about dirty tricks, but above all about sweating regularly in training and having a champion mentality. Without this, great champions cannot be achieved in modern sports: the times when it was possible to win only with talent left somewhere in the middle of the last century.
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Photo: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
In short, among the tennis players who are already performing at a high level, the main candidates to join the conditional Big 3 are Medvedev (on hard court), Zverev (if he solves his psychological problems in the Slams) and, perhaps, Rune. (by age and progress space). At the same time, as I already said, in a few years a completely new star may light up, which is now, say, 16-17 years old. In the meantime, we will enjoy the brilliant confrontation between Alcaraz and Sinner, we will wait when and under what conditions Novak Djokovic, who is already 37 years old, will return from injury, and we will cheer for our favorite players.
