Former Australian pro Luke Saville believes Sinner and Alcaraz are changing the sport.
“I feel like they’re clearly the two best in the men’s game right now,” he said on this week’s episode of The Tennis, “and it’s just great to see when they both go at it – amazing tennis.”
For all the excitement the Sinner-Alcaraz duopoly generates, one criticism to emerge is the apparent absence of a player to challenge them.
Novak Djokovic seems the likeliest figure, yet the 24-time Grand Slam champion, now 38 years old, is approaching the end of his career.
He admitted after a straight-sets loss to Sinner in the Wimbledon semifinals: “Playing best-of-five, particularly this year, has been a real struggle for me physically. The longer the tournament goes, yeah, the worse the condition gets.
“I reach the semis of every Slam this year, but I have to play Sinner or Alcaraz. These guys are fit, young, sharp. I feel like I’m going into the match with tank half empty. It’s just not possible to win a match like that.”
Instead, the ultimate challenger to the ‘Sincaraz’ stranglehold over men’s tennis might logically come from a younger cohort.
And Saville has his eye on one player in particular.