Jannik Sinner’s incredible form continued as he defeated Carlos Alcaraz to win the Monte-Carlo Masters.
Sinner continues to break records in tennis and he has now become just the second man to win Indian Wells, the Miami Open, and Monte-Carlo in the same year.
The Italian’s victory against Alcaraz ensured he would return to the top of the ATP Tour rankings ahead of a busy run of tournaments, which includes two more Masters in Madrid and Rome.
Both Alcaraz and Sinner have had standout moments so far this year, but Greg Rusedski believes one thing is helping the Italian stand above his rival.
The key difference between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz
Alcaraz started the season with a 17-match winning streak, which saw him lift the Australian Open and the Qatar Open.
His season was slightly derailed during the Sunshine Double, which is where Sinner started to hit an incredible vein of form.
Rusedski has compared the two players’ start to the season and believes Alcaraz’s return of serve is what is letting him down compared to Sinner.
How would you rate that Monte Carlo final out of 10?
Speaking on Off-Court with Greg, the British star said: “I look at Alcaraz and I look at Sinner. I think it’s much more difficult to get through Sinner because of his return to serve.
“With Alcaraz, if you hit your spots, you can get on the front foot and you can knock him around the court a little bit because he’s not as tall. And if you hit the spots, that’s where you have to take advantage.
“As we saw with Vacherot on a few points in that semi-finals, when you have a big server, he’s not always comfortable.”
Rusedski believes Sinner is far more dominant than Alcaraz when it comes to returning serve.
“Well, if you look at Jannik, no matter what server he’s playing, whether it’s a big server, medium server, he always looks like he’s there and he’s in every return game, as well as the serve numbers we’ve talked about, which has been phenomenal.”
Sinner has won 24 matches so far in 2026, while Alcaraz is slightly behind his Italian rival with 21 victories.
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s return stats analysed
Unsurprisingly, Sinner and Alcaraz top the ATP Tour’s ‘Return Leaders’ rating, but the Italian is quite significantly better than the Spaniard.
Sinner tops the list with a whopping 166.3 rating, which takes into account first and second serve percentage rating and percentage of return games won.
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The new world number one has won 32.3% of his return games on the ATP Tour, which is more than anyone else.
In contrast, Alcaraz, who has a 161.9 return rating from the ATP Tour, has won 30.3% of his return games in the last year.
These are small margins, but they could be the reason why Sinner is currently getting the best of Alcaraz on the ATP Tour.
