Jannik Sinner’s plan to rip up playing style to close gap on Carlos Alcaraz

The overall head-to-head record is not overwhelmingly one-sided, at 10-5 to Alcaraz, but the recent pattern is. Sinner has now suffered seven defeats in their past eight matches stretching back to March 2024, the only exception coming in July’s Wimbledon final.

It has put Sinner in a tricky position. His base level is clearly far too good for everyone else on the tour, with Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik the only player other than Alcaraz to beat him in 2025, in the second round of June’s Halle Open on grass. But four defeats by Alcaraz this year, two of them in grand-slam finals, having also lost the French Open decider, has pushed Sinner to plan a rebuild, whatever the cost in terms of his results in the coming months.

“I was very predictable today on the court in the way that he did many things and changed up the game,” Sinner said. “That’s also his style of how he plays. Now it’s going to be on me if I want to make changes or not. Definitely we are going to work on that.

“I’m trying to be more prepared for the next match I will play against him. It also depends how you arrive to play against Carlos. When the scoreline of the matches before are comfortable [Sinner dropped only two sets in six matches en route to the final], but you always do the same things, like I did during this tournament when I didn’t make one serve-volley and didn’t use a lot of drop shots, then you arrive to a point where you play against Carlos where you have to go out of the comfort zone.

“I’m going to aim to maybe even lose some matches from now on, but try to do some changes and try to be a bit more unpredictable as a player because I think that’s what I have to do in trying to become a better tennis player.”

While Sinner made clear his belief that he has become too one-dimensional against Alcaraz with a heavy reliance on his powerful groundstrokes from the baseline, there was also an acknowledgment that his serve needs some work. Forty-eight per cent of first serves in against Alcaraz, who recorded 61 per cent, is not going to get the job done.

“The serve today was not on point,” Sinner said. “I felt I was struggling a lot today, but it was already struggling during the tournament, you know.

“It takes time. One secret is also patience. It’s not like it comes now and then in Beijing [the China Open starts on September 25] I’m going to be a lefty. So let’s see.”

No major surgery is required on Alcaraz’s game. The 22-year-old will look to keep things ticking along over the coming months before he attempts to complete the career grand slam at January’s Australian Open. It is a feat that only eight men have achieved in the history of the sport — Fred Perry, Don Budge, Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — and securing it in Melbourne would mean he beats Sinner to it before the French Open in May.

“It’s my first goal, to be honest,” Alcaraz said. “When I go to the pre-season to do what I want to improve, what I want to achieve, the Australian Open is there. It’s the second tournament of the year [after a warm-up], and it is always the main goal for me to complete a career grand slam and a calendar grand slam.

“If I do it first or second [after Sinner], to be honest, I don’t mind. I just want to complete it. Obviously I’m going to try to do it next year, but if it is not next year, hopefully in two or three or four. If he does it first, it’s a great achievement, but all I want to think about is to complete it no matter when.”

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