The Year of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner

Dominance in sports is often defined by the success of one team or player. But in men’s tennis this year, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, two rivals, towered over the rest of the field. 

Alcaraz, 22, and Sinner, 24, battled in six times this year, all championship matches, including the first time in history that the same duo faced-off in three Grand Slam finals in a single calendar year. They split the four major titles, including the undisputed best match of the season: a five-hour, 29-minute French Open final, the second-longest Grand Slam final in history.

“I’m seeing [Sinner] more than my mom actually, but I never get tired of seeing him,” Alcaraz, who finished the season at world No. 1, ahead of Sinner, told CNN in November. 

Some of the players on tour have acknowledged that the pair are clearly outperforming the rest.

Félix Auger-Aliassime, the world No. 5, said that Alcaraz and Sinner are “a level above everyone” after he was eliminated by Alcaraz at the ATP Finals last month.

Even Novak Djokovic, who has won 24 Grand Slams, the most of any men’s tennis player, has accepted that he’s been surpassed by the two.

“I’m aware that my best level now and their best level now, they’re better. That’s the reality,” Djokovic said on Piers Morgan Uncensored in November. The 38-year-old said he sometimes has “doubts” when he faces Sinner and Alcaraz.

A quantifiable way to illustrate the dominance of Sinner and Alcaraz this year is through their prize money. Sinner, despite winning only two of six head-to-head matches against Alcaraz, finished slightly ahead with $19.1 million to $18.8 million for Alcaraz. 

Sinner and Alcaraz had the second- and third-highest earning seasons in history, respectively, behind only Novak Djokovic in 2015 ($21.15 million)—even though Sinner missed three months of the year due to a doping-related ban. (The World Anti-Doping Agency issued the ban on Sinner in February after testing positive for the drug Clostebol, though it was significantly shorter than the maximum two years he could have received. An independent tribunal ruled that Sinner bore “no fault or negligence” for the positive tests.)

Alcaraz and Sinner each earned at least three times more than No. 3 Alexander Zverev ($6 million). 

Their combined earnings ($37.9 million) are almost as much as the total earned by the eight remaining players in the top 10 ($40.2 million). 

But a look at total prize money shows that the two have a long way to go before they can catch Djokovic and his fellow Big Three members Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. The trio paired dominance with longevity.

They’ve each earned at least $130 million in career earnings, doubling up fourth place Andy Murray, who made $64.6 million. Djokovic, the outright money leader, has more than three times of Murray. He earned $5.1 million this year, seventh among all players, and is creeping close to $200 million.

Sinner and Alcaraz are projected to pass Murray for fourth on the all-time earnings list by next year, and they could come close to the winnings of the Big Three by the end of the decade considering the rising purses across all tennis tournaments.

But it’ll be a taller task to match the Grand Slam wins of the three who dominated the [ast two decades, winning at least 20 Grand Slams apiece. They all dealt with injuries throughout their careers and were able to win titles even after turning 36 years old.

Alcaraz has won six Grand Slams since his first breakthrough at the 2022 US Open, while Sinner has secured his four within the last two years.