Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s rivals are yet to come up with a successful game plan when they face the two with former world No 1 Justine Henin saying the chasing pack is not up to scratch.
Alcaraz and Sinner will meet in their seventh final in 2025 with four of those coming at the biggest events as after squaring off in the Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open finals, the duo will now face each other in the ATP Finals.
They have been the dominant pair on the ATP Tour the past two years as they have each won four Grand Slams, last year Sinner reached the most finals (nine) and won the most titles (eight) while this year Alcaraz has reached 11 finals and won eight titles with the ATP Finals showpiece match still to come.
The gap between the two and their rivals appears to be widening all the time, according to Henin.
Ahead of the ATP Finals showpiece match in Turin, Alcaraz leads the Live ATP Rankings on 12,050 with Sinner on 11,000 and Alexander Zverev a distant third on 5,160 while Novak Djokovic (4,830) and Auger-Aliassime (4,245) complete the top five.
“We have a top 10 that has been shaken up with players who have dropped out after giving their all in recent years: [Andrey] Rublev, [Daniil] Medvedev, [Casper] Ruud… [Stefanos] Tsitsipas has been there for a while now,” she told Eurosport.
“Some are coming up, others are coming back, but we’ve seen [Felix] Auger-Aliassime’s shortcomings, it’s hard to imagine [Alex] de Minaur going much higher.”
Their ruthlessness continued in Turin this week as they have both reached the final without losing a match with the Italian winning his four matches in straight sets as he beat Auger-Aliassime, Zverev and Shelton in the group phase before seeing off De Minaur in the semi-finals.
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Alcaraz lost one set against Taylor Fritz in the round-robin phase while he beat De Minaur and Lorenzo Musetti without dropping a set to reach the last four, where he defeated Auger-Aliassime in straight sets.
“We can try to rewrite history as much as we want, but that’s the reality,” Henin said. “There are them, and then there are the others. So, yes, we naturally want to see them in the final. I’ve seen other great things this week from other players, but not when they’re up against Sinner or Alcaraz. There’s no suspense there. It’s as simple as that.”
So what makes the new Big Two so impressive?
“When he decides to step on the gas, when he attacks him on his backhand side, he throws him off balance, including on the other side. What’s phenomenal about Alcaraz is his footwork,” the Belgian said.
“He must have done a lot of proprioception work, because he has a responsiveness in his feet that allows him to start faster than anyone else. And Sinner isn’t bad in his own way either. So when you take into account the aerial aspect and the speed, you end up with this huge difference. Physically, they are 10 steps ahead of the others.”
She added: “For people, physicality is often about the ability to last very long matches. But no, it’s not just that. It’s also what they impose, in terms of duration of course, but also in terms of intensity, speed of movement, and speed of execution. Their vision and reactivity constantly pose a problem.”
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