“I’m seeing you more than my family,” Carlos Alcaraz joked as he turned to Jannik Sinner during the US Open trophy presentation in September, after the two players who are dominating men’s tennis played in their third consecutive grand slam final. At the start of 2026, neither Alcaraz nor Sinner is tired of the other yet. Instead, the closeness of their rivalry has illustrated how irrelevant everyone else is becoming. On Sunday, Alcaraz and Sinner arrived in Australia together, stepping off the plane to be photographed and interviewed after sharing the same private jet with their teams. A choreographed entrance in Melbourne signified that the main event had landed.
Rather than entering a warm-up tournament before the Australian Open, Alcaraz and Sinner headed to South Korea to play a lightly contested exhibition, featuring some pretend rallies and Sinner handing his racket to a child in the front row for a point. It was a bit of fun – which earned both players £1.7m for turning up, according to Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport – before the real business begins. Both Alcaraz and Sinner stressed their exhibition would not reveal anything ahead of the Australian Open. After all, for all of the friendliness between Alcaraz and Sinner, there is too much on the line for them not to be guarded, too.
A year ago, the big question facing men’s tennis was which of the four grand slam tournaments would stage the first Alcaraz vs Sinner final. Now, the Australian Open is the only one to be missing from the list, and a fourth in a row between the two best players in the world feels inevitable.
Back at world No 1, Alcaraz is aiming for his first title in Melbourne, a feat that would complete the career grand slam and make the 22-year-old Spaniard the youngest man of all time to do so. But Sinner, 24, is the two-time defending champion. He is looking to become just the second man in the Open era, after Novak Djokovic, to win three Australian Opens on the spin, and the fourth man this century, after Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, to win the same grand slam three times in a row.
As Alcaraz and Sinner revolve around each other, learning from past defeats and coming into the next event stronger, it becomes ever more apparent how much of their time is spent thinking about the other. In November, after playing the final official match of the best season of his career in defeat to Sinner in the ATP finals title match, Alcaraz set the tone by declaring: “Hope you’re gonna be ready for next year. Because I will be ready for more finals against you!” For Alcaraz and Sinner, only one other player mattered in 2025, as they split the grand slam titles for the second consecutive season. Sinner summed that up by admitting his rivalry with Alcaraz is what gives him “motivation” and “purpose”.
But the biggest news of the tennis off-season came when Alcaraz announced his shock split from his long-term coach and mentor, Juan Carlos Ferrero. The Spaniard has yet to detail the reasons behind the break-up, while Ferrero has been more forthcoming.
It asks questions of why Alcaraz, or the people behind him, wanted to take such a drastically different direction, after rising from teenage prodigy to world No 1. Ferrero has pointed to “contractual matters” but conceded “some of those issues could have been resolved if we had sat down to talk”. If there was no main reason, if Ferrero’s finances or Alcaraz’s desire for independence were as much of a factor as the rivalry with Sinner and the constant demand for improvement, then it may appear a drastic move to take from a position of such strength.
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It may underline, again, how irrelevant everyone else is becoming. For Alcaraz, read changing coach after the finest season of his career in the same language as Sinner’s reaction to his US Open final loss, as the Italian lambasted his “predictable” approach and appeared willing to tinker with the game that is virtually unbeatable against the rest of the men’s tour in order to find the changes required to defeat Alcaraz.
It’s Alcaraz admitting he and Ferrero spent 15 days preparing for Sinner, just Sinner, as he eyed revenge after losing to him at Wimbledon. It’s the best two players in the world rocking up at the Australian Open having only competed in a couple of relaxed sets against each other. Is the rest of the men’s field in Melbourne getting the sense they don’t matter?
Djokovic and Nadal were the last men to play in four grand slam finals in a row, between the 2011 Wimbledon and the 2012 French Open. It would perhaps be fitting for Alcaraz and Sinner to go from their Roland Garros final through to the Australian Open, completing the ascent of two generational players and the sport’s next great rivalry. But it would not be a good look for the rest of the top 10 and beyond, locked out of grand slam finals for a year and perhaps more. And that is why, for all of the records and history Alcaraz and Sinner continue to write, the question that may follow Alcaraz and Sinner’s achievements in 2026 is whether a third man can become a contender, can become relevant.
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In terms of the young hopes, Jack Draper continues to be frustrated by his recovery from injury, sidelined along with Arthur Fils and Holger Rune. Joao Fonseca’s progress in 2025 perhaps wasn’t as explosive as his arrival at last January’s Australian Open, but he carries great expectations from Brazil and is still yet to meet Alcaraz or Sinner in battle. Flavio Cobolli’s Davis Cup exploits for Italy were somewhat reminiscent of Sinner’s transformational week in 2023, and he now needs to carry it into a grand slam.
Of the older guard, Novak Djokovic is openly admitting Alcaraz or Sinner are “too good” over best-of-five, and is perhaps relying on someone else doing it first. Alexander Zverev had a difficult year since reaching the 2025 Australian Open final, but remains No 3. Alex de Minaur goes once more in his attempt to break his quarter-final curse and Taylor Fritz again bids to push more from his game, while all of them know, ultimately, that Alcaraz and Sinner still have more. Felix Auger-Aliassime’s resurgent form, meanwhile, offers hope to Daniil Medvedev, Casper Ruud and Stefanos Tsitsipas, along with others who have lost their way.
Around tennis, this remains a great time of the year – new starts and fresh beginnings. For Alcaraz and Sinner, it is likely to be more of the same.
