Alcaraz – Sinner and the five other exciting rivalries between the four young wolves of men’s tennis (updated after Rune-Sinner, Monte-Carlo 2024)
A closer look at the burgeoning rivalries between the four men who could light up the Tour in the future
Sinner, Alcaraz, Musetti and Rune, 2023 – © Tennis Majors
The rivalry between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner already spans eight matches and has all the potential to be the defining rivalry of the post-Big Three era. The pair have pushed themselves clear of the rest of the youngsters but with Holger Rune and Lorenzo Musetti also going well, the four post-adolescents of men’s tennis, the future looks bright.
The strongest rivalry: Alcaraz – Sinner
The words they use to describe their mutual respect are each sweeter than the next, and they never shy away from training together whenever they can. Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner may not actually be personal friends, but their chivalrous way of communicating about their rivalry is reminiscent of that between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Yet when it comes to tennis, their encounters are unbelievably violent. When Alcaraz and Sinner box on a court, as they did in the quarter-finals of the US Open 2022, the semi-finals in Miami in 2022, or at the same stage of this year’s Indian Wells event, the game is played at a level of power and speed that has probably never been seen before.
The strange thing about the Alcaraz – Sinner rivalry is that, although Alcaraz was the first of them to win Grand Slams and has already been No 1, Sinner’s game is the one that poses him the most problems on Tour and could do so in the long term. He is one of the few who can take time away from him thanks to his power on both sides and one of the few who can sustain his shots without flinching, even countering Carlitos’ speed and angles.
Sinner came within a point – a match point at the 2022 US Open – of gaining the upper hand in their head-to-head. Since then, Alcaraz has won two Grand Slams (the US Open in 2022 and Wimbledon in 2023) and taken the world No 1 ranking while Sinner, after plateauing for a while, has stormed up to No 3 and of course, won his first slam title at the 2024 Australian Open.
As Martina Navratilova said of Federer and Nadal, Alcaraz is better than anyone of his generation, but Sinner may still be the better of the two.
Head-to-head: 4-4 (1-1 in Grand Slam, 1-0 Sinner in final)
The most romantic rivalry: Alcaraz – Musetti
Lorenzo Musetti plays the role of the youngest player in the magic quadrant of the world’s young tennis wolves. He’s not the youngest in age, but he’s the least advanced in the hierarchy (best-ranked No 15, no Grand Slam quarters) and above all, with his attacking game with a one-handed backhand, lightness of movement and almost outdated style, it seems a given that he’ll need more time than the others to play the big titles.
Musetti will need more maturity too: the day the general public discovered him when he led two sets to love against Novak Djokovic in the last 16 at Roland Garros in 2021, he finally gave up, unhurt, physically, after conceding 16 of the last 17 games (6-7, 6-7, 6-1, 6-0, 4-0).
But here’s the thing. If his lows are really disappointing (two fourth-round showings at Roland-Garros is no return on his ability), his highs are extraordinary. In the third round on Parisian clay in 2023, Musetti pulverised Cameron Norrie. He also won the first Tour-level match between himself and Carlos Alcaraz in the Hamburg final last summer (6-4, 6-7, 6-4), before being well-beaten at Roland-Garros in 2023 and Beijing the same year. His creativity can unsettle any opponent and as he builds strength and confidence, he is likely to become even more dangerous.
Alcaraz most recently met Musetti in their last-16 match at the 2024 Miami Open, with the Spaniard again proving too strong for the Italian, winning in straight sets to extend his winning record against Musetti.
Head-to-head: 3-1 Alcaraz
Note: Alcaraz won their first pro match, played on the Futures Tour in Trieste.
The most eagerly-aNTICIPATED rivalry: Alcaraz – Rune
The pair are from the same year (2003) and have played each other in junior tournaments. They even played doubles together at the Petits As in Tarbes, at U14 level. There’s something of a Novak Djokovic-Andy Murray feel to their relationship: they’ve been testing each other’s mettle since they were teenagers, and one of them has got ahead of the other (Alcaraz), but they’re destined to battle it out for the biggest titles.
Rune was prodigious in his first full year on Tour, in 2022, bouncing off the self-confidence shown by Alcaraz as he won the Paris Masters title the same year. The Dane has yet to really catch fire in Grand Slams, though, reaching three quarter-finals so far but never making it past the last eight.
The pair met each other at Grand Slam level for the first time in the quarter-finals of Wimbledon 2023. Although it was a high-quality and close encounter, Alcaraz won in straight sets, as Rune’s form dipped in the second and third sets following a tiebreak in the first.
Alcaraz leads their rivalry 2-1 but we can expect many more big battles between them in the future.
Head-to-head : Alcaraz 2-1
The most Italian rivalry: Sinner – Musetti
Now back on the map as one of the world’s top tennis nations, Italy is fortunate to have two very young players whose opposing styles seem almost to have been written by a scriptwriter, between the big, powerful man and the artist in the making. For the moment, this rivalry suffers from a certain imbalance; Musetti has never taken a set from Sinner in two matches (including three sets lost 6-2 out of the four contested) and reached their quarter-final in Barcelona thanks to his elder compatriot’s withdrawal.
Head-to-head – 2-0 Sinner
The most electric: Rune – Sinner
Among the matches that revealed Rune to the public at large were his masterpiece at the Paris Masters 1000, his victory over Djokovic in Rome, and that stormy night session against Sinner in Monte Carlo in 2023. It was one of those matches where Sinner finally gave the impression that he was on the road to excellence, to the great runs of the Masters 1000. But Rune was able to absorb the energy of a predominantly Italian crowd to transcend his frustrations and allow his competitive character to triumph. Sinner has caught up him, since, however, and the Italian grabbed his first win over the Dane in three meetings with a three-set win at the ATP Finals in Turin in 2023 before beating Rune again in the quarter-finals of the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters.
Head-to-head: 2-2
The most delayed rivalry: Rune – Musetti
Although they crossed paths a lot on the courts of the Mouratoglou Academy when they were teenagers, both benefiting from the ChampSeed programme, Rune and Musetti took a while to meet in the pros, their first clash coming in the quarter-finals of Queen’s in 2023, when Rune won a tight two-setter. The Dane also prevailed in Indian Wells this year, with Rune again coming out on top in two sets, although the second went to a tiebreak.
