NEW YORK – Carlos Alcaraz threw his arms in the air before a broad smile spread over his face and he squatted on his knees. He had just won the US Open title of 2025, for a fascinated crowd of 24,000 at Arthur Ashe Stadium. But his real celebration could wait.
For something else he had to hug and congratulate his opponent Jannik Sinner. The couple – fiercest of rivals on the field, but true friends – were all smiling and compliments when they met at the net. They then walked off the field with their arms over each other’s shoulders wrapped in a show of real admiration.
It was the third consecutive meeting in a grand finale between the two, and Sunday’s final had been a non-Miss-Match-with ticket prices in the thousands and the World No. 1 ranking list on the line.
In the end it was Alcaraz who earned the surprisingly simple 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory for his sixth most important title.
But it doesn’t matter who won on Sunday, it was clear that the competition was that Herentennis currently has two categories: Sinner and Alcaraz and everyone else.
“I see you more than my family,” Alcaraz joked during the trophy ceremony as he looked at the sinner.
After having won his quarter-final game on Tuesday, Novak Djokovic, the 24-way large champion who spent more weeks on number 1 than anyone else in history, acknowledged that it would be difficult to beat Alcaraz in the semi-final and then be a challenge if he had Sinner in the final. But he sounded optimistic.
“We know they are the two best players in the world,” he told reporters. “Everyone probably expects and anticipates the final between the two. I’m going to try, you know, the plans of most people to mess up.”
Three days later, Alcaraz Djokovic defeated in a mostly one-sided affair, 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-2, to continue to the final. The attitude of Djokovic was particularly shifted, and he sounded depressed, if not, when he spoke with the media again.
“It will be very difficult for me in the future to overcome the obstacle of the sinner [and] Alcaraz, in the best-of-five [in] The Grand Slams, “said Djokovic flat.
Sunday officially marked the first season since 2002 where no member of the Big Three – Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal – reached a grand finale. But it is abundantly clear that a new era of dominance is for us and the baton has been adopted. And although other players may not have the same physical worries or limitations as the 38-year-old Djokovic in long matches, the obstacle of the new Big Two is really for every player on tour. After the victory of Alcaraz op Ashe, the duo has combined to win the last eight Majors – every SLAM since the beginning of the 2024 season. And the titles are evenly distributed between them, with four each.
So now, with just a certain degree of hyperbola, the question is: because neither the 22-year-old Alcaraz or the 24-year-old sinner are probably at their peak, can another man win a major in the near future?
Two years ago that question may seemed far -fetched. Even ridiculous. At the end of the 2023 season, Alcaraz had two major titles to his name and Sinner had reached his first SLAM -and a half final that season, but still had to win a title. Both talents were clear and their ceilings were unlimited, but neither was exactly a fact to fight for each title.
Djokovic, on the other hand, had won three of the four SLAM titles of the year and showed no signs of delay. During the ATP final at the end of the year in which he won, he had faith in his possibilities to break the big record of all time and some in 2024.
“Well, you can win four slams and an Olympic gold,” said Djokovic when he was asked about his goals for the coming season.
After talking earlier during the season about how much he liked his “Opportunities in Grand Slams, against everyone on a surface, best-of-five”, it seemed that he believed that those ambitions were more than feasible. Sinner, who defeated Djokovic for the ATP Finals title, called him: “The best player in the world.”
But he promised to learn from the experience.
“I think today I generally saw that I still have to improve,” Sinner said at the time. “I believe he makes me a better player, like all the other players I lost to whom I lost. I have to work on this now.”
Sinner then won his most important title on the Australian Open only two months later – to start the 2024 season and to officially reveal the “Sincaraz” era of Dominance.
In 2025, Alcaraz and Sinner confronted each other with each other in the previous three SLAM Finals. Alcaraz won the French Open in a dramatic comeback, and Sinner spoiled Alcaraz’s bid for a three-level in Wimbledon in four sets. During the last eight Majors they have jointly confronted with four other opponents in the final: Djokovic, Taylor Fritz, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev (twice).
After Zverev was lost in straight sets at the Australian Open in January in January, he noticed against the crowd: “I don’t know if I will ever be able to lift the trophy.”
Fritz, the current world no. 4 that fell in straight sets to the sinner in the US Open final of 2024, was pragmatic at this stage in his assessment of Sinner and Alcaraz.
“They both improved a lot,” said Fritz this year at the start of the tournament. “I mean, you would expect it because they are both younger, so they still improve, get better. They have taken enormous steps in the last two years to become very clear, dominant players.
“I think they motivate the rest of the boys to improve because you have to improve a lot if you know, you know, they want to beat and compete for the biggest titles.”
And some others have indeed shown promising flashes. In the seven Masters 1000-level events this year, Alcaraz won three (and Sinner was put for four offside when he served a three-month suspension) but four other players-jacker, Jakub Menšík, Casper Ruud and Ben Shelton also become a victor.
The 22-year-old Shelton has now won three career titles, including at Canadian Open from last month, and has reached a large semi-final twice, including earlier this year in Melbourne. He currently has a career-high ranking of No. 6.
“I think those two boys are now, for the coming years, those to defeat, [but] Someone like a Ben Shelton can disturb them, “said former world no. 4 and the current analyst Mary Joe Fernandez.” I am really happy with his progress and saw him develop as a player. I still think he still has a lot of improvement to go.
“[Shelton] Has weapons. He is an entertainer, another player who really has fun. If he continues on this path of improvement, he can be someone who can disturb them. I mean, there are still a few more [players]Certainly. But it becomes difficult because these guys have set the bar really high. “
Shelton has only defeated Sinner once in the seven meetings and has never defeated Alcaraz. He was forced to withdraw from his third round match in New York because of a shoulder injury.
The Brazilian teenager Joao Fonseca, currently arranged no. 44, is another name that is often mentioned as a future competition and someone who would one day be able to beat Sinner and Alcaraz out of their shared perch. Former world no. 8 John Isner, who spent his entire career playing at the “Big Three”, believes that Fonseca might have the best chance of challenging the duo.
“I know that we pump Fonseca a lot, but because of the health of our sport, and I actually believe this, I am going to say yes. He can catch up with these guys and reach the conversation,” Izner said on his “nothing important” podcast earlier this summer. “I am not saying that it will be next year or the following year, but in the next four or five years he can be in the conversation where he is one of the top four favorites to win every SLAM he comes in.”
Fonseca, who made his most important debut in the main image this season and reached the third round in the French Open and Wimbledon, has to come across both players. He lost in the second round in New York.
So for the time being Sinner and Alcaraz appear in their own competition. There is almost a gap of 5,000 points between the couple and no. 3 Zverev and the rest of the field in the ranking.
During the US open were the two sizzling dominant. On the way to the final, both had won at least 95% of their service games – with Alcaraz at 98% and they won two. Sinner conquered in 42% of his return games, with Alcaraz taking about a third of his. Each had three games in their respective runs that lasted two hours or less. After the sinner Alexander Bublik had handed over, the no. 23 Seed, a 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 loss in just 81 minutes, congratulated a Shell-Shocked but amused Buffik on the net by saying: “You’re so good. I’m not bad, like what the F —?”
The opponents of Alcaraz had similar feelings. “I will just say that I think I met the Grand Slam version of Carlos a bit today,” said no. 20 seed Jiri Lehecka after a 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 loss in the quarterfinals. “That is the way I would like to think about it, because yes, it was a difficult match.”
By meeting in the final of Sunday, it only marked the second time in the open era that two men declared all the big titles in two seasons and fell to Federer and Nadal in 2006 and 2007.
Tennis can of course be a fickle sport and things can change quickly. For a few years, Medvedev seemed to be the next big thing and among the heirs that are clear to replace the big three. He reached six major finals between 2019 and 2024, won the 2021 US Open and even briefly kept the World No. 1 -ranking. But this year he won only one competition at a SLAM and was upset in the opening round at the French Open, in Wimbledon and during these two weeks at the US Open.
Although Medvedev could certainly turn things around and Sinner and Alcaraz in 2026 have not shown signs of a future slump-the current struggles of the 29-year-old simply proof how difficult it is to maintain such a high level for a longer period.
At the moment, while the couple in a category are in its own category and the clear favorites for just about everything that will be going on in the future, it is a gamble that will happen. And just like Andy Murray, Stan Wawrinka and Juan Martin del Potro found a way to win in the largest stages in the era of Djokovic, Federer and Nadal, there is also room for someone else in the current tenniseco system.
“I think Sinner and Alcaraz will dominate the next three or four years,” said former US Open quarter finalist and ESPN broadcaster Patrick Mcenroe. “Do I think they will all win? No.”
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