Carlos Alcaraz unsettles Jannik Sinner like no other player in tennis and former world No 1 Mats Wilander believes there are a couple of reasons why the Italian struggles to deal with his biggest rival.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz ended Sinner\u2019s long unbeaten run when he secured a straight sets win in the Italian Open final earlier this month, with the defending Roland Garros champion laying down a marker ahead of the defence of his title in Paris.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz leads his head-to-head record with Sinner 7-4 and Wilander has told Tennis365 that the 22-year-old has two big weapons that allow him to compete with the current world No 1 like no other player in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main reason why Sinner struggles against Alcaraz is he is so fast at doing everything,\u201d Wilander told Tennis365 in his role as a TNT Sports analyst.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other reason Jannik doesn\u2019t like playing against him he has a big forehand and that can knock you off balance.<\/p>\n
Chris Evert on which of Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz is \u2018mentally tougher\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n John McEnroe offers intriguing take as he answers Carlos Alcaraz question<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe big thing with Sinner is he strikes the ball so hard and also the way he can strike it early, without making too many mistakes.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is too much for a lot of people, but Alacarz is so quick that he can get to a lot of the balls other players cannot reach.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Sinner has a forehand and time to hit it, the other players have to guess left or right to have a chance to get it. Carlos doesn\u2019t have that problem so much as he is super fast.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in the front row watching their Rome final a few weeks back and for the first half an hour it looked like Alcaraz was struggling to hang with Sinner.<\/p>\n \u201cThen he started to absorb the power coming at him and found a way to swing it in his favour.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, Sinner could have won the first set of that match and it could have been a different result, but you could see that Alcaraz was getting used to absorbing the pace and when he then got Jannik doing things he didn\u2019t want to do, the match turned in his favour.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilander also suggests Alcaraz\u2019s magical dropshots are a challenge for Sinner, as it allows the Spaniard to take his big rival out of a comfort zone where he can be unstoppable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just about trying to bring Jannik forward that is the secret for Alcaraz\u2019s success against him,\u201d stated Wilander.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we see with Sinner is he likes to be on the base line hitting balls so hard and so early, but that means he is not always on his toes. His feet are fully on the ground so he can develop that power.<\/p>\n \u201cSo when he has to deal with drop shots and low balls that force him to come forward, that is not where he wants to be.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt gets him off balance. Not just with his feet but in his mind as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Alcaraz and Sinner could be on course to meet in an epic Roland Garros final, as the top two seeds are moving through the draw in Paris with impressive efficiency.<\/p>\n It would be their first meeting in a Grand Slam final, with Alcaraz\u2019s pace and forehand power the two key elements to look out for if the \u2018Big 2\u2019 meet once again.<\/p>\n Watch every moment of the French Open live and exclusive on TNT Sports and discovery+<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n READ NEXT: Novak Djokovic gets huge Grand Slam vote of confidence from former world No 1<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Two big reasons why Carlos Alcaraz unsettles Jannik Sinner revealed by former world No 1<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carlos Alcaraz unsettles Jannik Sinner like no other player in tennis and former world No 1 Mats Wilander believes there are a couple of reasons why the Italian struggles to deal with his biggest rival. Alcaraz ended Sinner\u2019s long unbeaten run when he secured a straight sets win in the Italian Open final earlier this […]<\/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-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","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=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}