Alcaraz rejects a Sinner duopoly for 2027 and calls Zverev “the best player of this year”
Fresh from his 6-1, 6-4 win over Alex de Minaur in the Vienna final, Carlos Alcaraz refused to reduce 2027 to a duel with Jannik Sinner. The beaten Australian says both keep closing “the small holes” in their games, which only makes them harder to beat.
Carlos Alcaraz, Vienn 2026 | © Yigit Oerme / Ps Images/Psnewz
Carlos Alcaraz has heard the prediction for 2027, and he does not accept it. Asked in Vienna on Sunday whether next season would again revolve around Jannik Sinner and himself, the Spaniard refused the shortcut. “I don’t like to say it’s going to be Jannik and me and the rest of the people,” he said after beating Alex de Minaur 6-1, 6-4 in the Erste Bank Open final. “Let’s see who’s going to be there.”
His first name was not Sinner’s. “Sascha showed us what he’s capable of doing this year,” Alcaraz said of Alexander Zverev, who becomes world No. 1 on Monday. “The best player of this year. Let’s see if he’s going to continue to do the great things he’s been doing this year in 2027.”
The tribute mirrors Zverev’s own reading of the season. In Vienna this week, the German insisted that Sinner had been the best player in the world in the first half of the year, and that “I would be an idiot to sit here and say that I was equally as good as Jannik.” He also argued that, until this season, the top of the game belonged to two men. “Last year there was no three-way dominance,” Zverev said. “It was the two of them. I was always third, sure, but those two were far ahead of me.”
Alcaraz, Sinner, Zverev: three rivals who barely met in 2026
The three men rarely crossed paths this season. Alcaraz and Sinner met only once, in the Monte-Carlo final in April, which Sinner won 7-6, 6-3 to take the world No. 1 ranking. Alcaraz and Zverev played only once, in the Australian Open semi-finals in January, which Alcaraz won 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-7 (4), 7-5 in 5 hours and 27 minutes. And since Zverev became a Grand Slam champion at Roland-Garros, he has faced Sinner only once, in the Wimbledon final, which the Italian won 6-7 (7), 7-6 (2), 6-3, 6-4.
The man Alcaraz beat on Sunday gave the other side of the argument. “What both Carlos and Jannik are able to do is continuously improve the small holes, if you could even call them holes, that they had once upon a time,” de Minaur said. “They’re able to improve in those areas, and then it becomes even harder to play against them.” He saw no step back in Alcaraz after his injury. “The only difference from before the injury, I would say, is more of a gradual improvement where he keeps on getting better.”
Two seasons cut in half
Both Alcaraz and Sinner lost half a season in 2026. Alcaraz missed about four and a half months between April and August with a wrist injury. Sinner has not played since Wimbledon and ended his season in October because of a knee problem. He is due to return at the Six Kings Slam exhibition in Riyadh, Dec. 27-30.
Alcaraz also pointed to Ben Shelton, who reached his first Grand Slam final this year at the US Open. Asked about reports that his former coach Juan Carlos Ferrero could join Shelton’s team, Alcaraz said he had not seen them. “Until Juanki says that, I’m not going to believe it,” he said. “But if it is true, I think it’s going to be a great addition to Ben Shelton’s team.” Of Shelton, he added: “I think he’s ambitious and hungry for more next year.”
For Alcaraz, the season will be decided before it starts. “The pre-season is really important,” he said. “I can tell you the players are taking the pre-season really seriously, those weeks of training really hard to be in good shape. I’m pretty sure a lot of players are going to show up, and we’re going to try to do our best to catch them or beat them.”
Zverev has already described his. The new world No. 1 said in Vienna that his four-week December block leaves little room for the racket. “When I do an off-season in December and I train for four weeks, I do five or six hours of fitness training every day and I play maybe one hour or one hour fifteen of tennis,” he said.
