Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner arrived at the top of the game within about a year of each other and play almost nothing alike, which is the most interesting thing about them.
Two solutions
Alcaraz plays with the widest shot selection of anyone in the top ten — drop shots from defensive positions, heavy topspin to open the court, a willingness to come forward on a ball most players would rally with. The variety creates errors in opponents who are used to reading patterns.
Sinner does the opposite. He hits the ball flatter and earlier than almost anyone, takes time away from the other side of the net, and rarely changes plan mid-rally. The pattern is legible and still very hard to survive.
Why the match-up holds
Variety normally beats power on slow courts and loses on fast ones. That has not reliably happened here, which suggests both are good enough at the other man’s game to remove the obvious surface advantage.
A rivalry needs two players who are close in level and different in method. Tennis has spent two decades with the first and rather less of the second.
