Former ATP Tour star Julien Benneteau believes Jannik Sinner will be back to top form across the American hard-court swing, despite claiming that Carlos Alcaraz had \u201cgotten into\u201d the Italian\u2019s head.<\/p>\n
World No 2 Sinner<\/a> has been one of the most dominant players of the past two seasons, with him and world No 1 Alcaraz<\/a> combining to win the last nine Grand Slam men\u2019s singles titles between them.<\/p>\n Sinner was arguably the form player of the closing months of 2025, winning the Vienna Open, Paris Masters, and ATP Finals \u2014 defeating Alcaraz in the final \u2014 to end his year on a 15-match unbeaten streak.<\/p>\n However, the Italian has not had a perfect start to 2026.<\/p>\n Sinner was beaten by Novak Djokovic in five sets in the semi-final of the Australian Open<\/a>, ending his five-match win streak against the Serbian and his 19-match win streak in Melbourne.<\/p>\n That was then followed by a surprise exit at the Qatar Open in his return to action last week, with the world No 2 beaten 7-6(3), 2-6, 6-3 by Jakub Mensik at the quarter-final stage in Doha<\/a>.<\/p>\n In contrast, Alcaraz lifted the title at both of those tournaments, with the Spaniard on an unbeaten 12-0 start to his 2026 campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n After defeat in Doha, Sinner will now head to the \u2018Sunshine Double\u2019 in Indian Wells and Miami, searching for his first title of 2026.<\/p>\n Sinner reached back-to-back semi-finals in Indian Wells in 2023 and 2024, while he was the Miami Open champion in 2024<\/a> \u2014 having previously reached the final in 2021 and 2023.<\/p>\n Emma Raducanu\u2019s huge sponsorship change set to be confirmed as brand teases announcement<\/a><\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz sends \u2018always room for improvement\u2019 warning to rivals, details 2026 domination plan<\/a><\/p>\n However, he was banned from competing at both tournaments in 2025 due to his three-month suspension for a doping violation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Speaking on RMC Sports<\/em>, former world No 25 Benneteau backed Sinner for a strong return to the Masters 1000 events, and claimed that the Italian would beat Alcaraz at some stage this year.<\/p>\n However, the Frenchman also claimed that Sinner was still chasing his Spanish rival.<\/p>\n He said (translated from French): \u201cAlcaraz isn\u2019t going to win all his matches; he\u2019s going to lose some.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Sinner will manage to beat Alcaraz during the season. But yes, as of February 22nd, since January 1st, he\u2019s [Alcaraz] been impressive. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen him this strong.<\/p>\n \u201cThen again, three weeks before the start of the season, it was Sinner who beat him in the Masters final. There isn\u2019t a world of difference between the two.<\/p>\n \u201cSinner might be a tiny bit off his game, and he took a hit by losing to Djokovic in the Australian Open semi-finals.<\/p>\n \u201cBut on the American tour with the Masters 1000 tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami, he\u2019ll be a force to be reckoned with. He\u2019s not going to lose in the round of 16 or the quarter-finals every time.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Alcaraz has gotten into his head because Sinner is trying to evolve his game compared to Alcaraz, whereas Carlos has a much more complete game than Sinner.\u201d<\/p>\n Action in Indian Wells \u2014 the first of the two \u2018Sunshine Double\u2019 tournaments \u2014 gets underway next week, with Sinner set to be the second seed at the tournament.<\/p>\n Currently, all of the ATP Tour top 10 are set to be in action, with Sinner set to be joined by world No 1 Alcaraz and world No 4 Djokovic in the men\u2019s singles draw.<\/p>\n With the Italian not defending any points after last year\u2019s suspension, this event provides a significant opportunity for him to start closing the gap towards Alcaraz at the top of the ATP Rankings.<\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: ATP Rankings: Carlos Alcaraz lead grows, Jakub Mensik\u2019s new high, Etcheverry +18, Buse +25<\/a><\/p>\n The post Jannik Sinner \u2018a force to be reckoned with\u2019 as star backed for Sunshine Double resurgence<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former ATP Tour star Julien Benneteau believes Jannik Sinner will be back to top form across the American hard-court swing, despite claiming that Carlos Alcaraz had \u201cgotten into\u201d the Italian\u2019s head. World No 2 Sinner has been one of the most dominant players of the past two seasons, with him and world No 1 Alcaraz […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n