Carlos Alcaraz ‘is mentally light years away from Sinner’ claims former pro
Carlos Alcaraz became the youngest ever world No.1 in history in 2022, but former professional tennis player Paolo Bertolucci believes that Jannik Sinner has the edge ‘mentally’.
Alcaraz made only his third career appearance at the Australian Open last month, resulting in his best performance of reaching the quarter-final.
While the Spaniard exited the tournament at the last eight stage, his rival Sinner went onto claim his first major title in Melbourne.
A special place to come home to, thank you for all the love ???????? ❤️
Un rientro molto speciale???? Grazie Roma! Grazie di cuore a tutti per l'affetto! ???????? pic.twitter.com/K4UDYzXhmD
— Jannik Sinner (@janniksin) January 31, 2024
And Sinner’s compatriot, Bertolucci, has compared the two, “In my opinion, Alcaraz has an incredible technical background, even physically, but mentally he is light years away from Sinner,”
Alcaraz has spoken about his desire to produce ‘impossible’ shots for fans, but Bertolucci has suggested that this can come to the detriment to some of the 20-year-old’s results.
“He looks for something else besides the point, many times he seems to be having fun and involving the public because his tennis is made up of special effects,” claimed the former No.12. “Content with making a point, he wants to do it with a double somersault, with a somersault. These are beautiful things, which drive you crazy, but sometimes they make you lose games.
“There are moments when everything is easy and you can let yourself go. But if you find three ties in the third set you have to go solid and he has been lacking lately from this point of view.”
Despite the damning verdict on Alcaraz’s mentality, Bertolucci believes that the world No.2 has time on his side, “He is two years younger than Sinner, he is very young and if they manage to channel him he will be a splendid player to be admired for a long time. Otherwise, it will be fluctuating with very high peaks and sudden drops.”
Inside the baseline…
It is an interesting point of view from Paolo Bertolucci, who is likely to have at least some unconscious bias, being from the same country as Jannik Sinner. That being said, there is definitely something to his point, as Carlos Alcaraz can appear to lose concentration in certain stages of matches. However, on the whole Alcaraz is achieving things that have never been done before at his age, so it is hard to be too critical.
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Carlos Alcaraz vs Jannik Sinner
Alcaraz may have achieved more than Sinner in terms of titles, but it is in fact the latter that has the better of their head-to-head:
Carlos Alcaraz
Age: 20
Career-high Ranking: No.1
Titles: 12
Grand Slam Titles: 2 (US Open 2021 & Wimbledon 2023)
Masters 1000 Titles: 4 (Miami 2022, Madrid 2022 & 2023, Indian Wells 2023)
ATP Finals Best Result: Semi-finals (2023)
Jannik Sinner
Age: 22
Career-high Ranking: No.4
Titles: 11
Grand Slam Titles: 1 (Australian Open 2024)
Masters 1000 Titles: 1 (Toronto 2023)
ATP Finals Best Result: Final (2023)
Head-to-Head: Carlos Alcaraz 3-4 Jannik Sinner
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