If it were just a question of numbers, we could see that Sinner and Alcaraz shared the exact same number of points this year (1651) and that therefore the balance between them is perfectly equal. There is some truth and it is no coincidence that when they play the difference lies in a very few points and a small handful of details, in which, as Adriano Panatta jokingly recalls, a little devil is hidden, the true creator of the abstruse rules of tennis.
It is true that Carlos Alcaraz has won eight titles this year, Jannik Sinner six and that at the moment the Spaniard, ahead in head-to-head matches, is number one in the world, while the Italian is number two. Yet one can venture the consideration that in 2025 Sinner was the best tennis player in the world in the results that are not only counted but weighed, in this swing destined to often become unbalanced, hanging by nothing now here or there..
This is demonstrated by the fact that he played in all five of the most important finals: Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, US Open and ATP Finals, winning three of them (Australia, Wimbledon and Finals), coming close to a fourth victory, in Paris, with three failed match points available and losing the US Open, impaired by an obvious health problem, which prevented the match from taking off. Perhaps not the numbers but the matches in which they truly played on equal terms, because they were free from external impediments (health problems like in Cincinnati or at the US Open, or the cold entry after the long stop imposed on Sinner for the Clostebol case), say that Sinner had something more in his mental stability in the long run, that element that leads him to play points under pressure with exceptional self-control, that he trains but doesn’t invent himself because he has to be there like that, and which forces him from time to time to remind the world, which has become accustomed to expecting him to never make mistakes, to be made of flesh and heart like everyone else.
Meanwhile, surface specialization weighs less and less, there is certainly still a small share of preference for hard courts for Sinner and a small share of preference for red clay for Alcaraz, but it is an isthmus that is becoming increasingly thinner. And most of the time, from here on out, it will be a matter of moments.
But 2025 demonstrated, after the psychologically very heavy 2024 managed at the top of the rankings, that rationality and clarity pay off and sometimes get the better of bold flair. Also because Jannik Sinner is learning better and better to put into practice the effort of resisting the difficult moments that happen to him in matches without getting demoralized and to wait on the river bank, or on the line of the pitch, for the moment of inattention of others that will help him come back when he goes down. Exactly what happened after the break of the second set in the ATP Finals of Turin 2025.
If today Carlos Alcaraz is the most complete player on the circuit, the most creative, the one with the most technical solutions in his racket despite his 22 years of age, Jannik Sinner, who still has room for improvement on a technical level, is today the most solid tactically, the most lucid: the one who always knows what to do on the court and who, when the pressure weighs on the court and off, knows how to do it without trembling.
