Why the Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner rivalry needs the rest of men’s tennis to step up

By contrast, Alcasinner have won 100 per cent, every grand slam final, of the past two years. Where one has won, the other has mostly been at the other end.

Even in a short period, tennis has never seen anything like it. They have raised tennis to an unknown level. But there’s the rub. The flipside of supremacy is unpredictability. Do Alcasinner threaten to crush the glorious uncertainty out of their sport?

The Federer-Nadal-Djokovic hegemony was interrupted by players who would have been megastars in any other era. Wawrinka and Andy Murray each won three slams; Juan Martin del Potro and Marin Cilic must have cursed their stars to be born at the wrong time; Daniil Medvedev, no doubt, still is. No sooner had he outlived Djokovic than he was overwhelmed by Alcasinner. Little wonder he thinks the world’s against him.

There was repeated tension, drama and personality in the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era. Federer had to overcome his ferocious perfectionist’s temper before it derailed him. Djokovic always seemed down and out with injury by the third round, and triumphed with the best defensive game of all time. Nadal was the ultimate grinder, sandpapering from the back court, an overdog in achievement but an underdog by temperament.

Everyone had their favourite of the Three, preferences formed as their personalities revealed themselves during struggle. Struggle was the key ingredient. Aside from a brief Federer golden age before Djokovic arrived, even for the Three nothing ever seemed to come easy. They owed their popularity to the high quality of what and who they had to overcome.

We’re still waiting for Alcasinner to find this personal definition. They can only be as good as who they need to beat, but who have they beaten? The next stratum seems sunk in despair.

Men’s tennis is suffering such a personality deficit that Nick Kyrgios’s confections still rate.

Alexander Zverev, already hard to sympathise with after his domestic violence case, gets more hangdog the closer he gets to Alcasinner. The rest of the top 10 are filled by Alcasinner debris. Beneath them are faces like Stefanos Tsitsipas and Casper Ruud, once great hopes, now with the stuffing knocked out of them.

Much as Australians wish for Alex de Minaur, for him to beat Alcaraz and then Sinner to win a grand slam is a test of hope that has no previous evidence to justify it. De Minaur is an entrenched world top 10 player but, like nearly everyone else in the top 10 or 20, he has not played in a grand slam final, never mind looked like winning one.

The exception here is Djokovic. But if, at 38, he’s still the best bet to beat the duopoly – just like Stan Wawrinka showing greater endurance than a 21-year-old – isn’t that a cause for worry?

Heavily curated social media and “behind the scenes” documentaries like Break Point have also failed on their promise to add personal texture. The women’s game at least has a bit of friction, on and off the court; the women’s side of the Australian Open doesn’t feel like two weeks of waiting for the obvious final.

Meanwhile, men’s tennis is suffering such a personality deficit that Nick Kyrgios’s confections still rate.

Thanks to social media, we can see that Alcaraz dyed his hair and is a good golfer. Sinner went to a restaurant. He probably could have been an Olympic skier. Even his drugs case has been litigated into a beige blur, depriving us of the stirrings of villain-hatred. The most interesting thing about him in the first week of the Open has been the skidmark tones of his outfits.

Loading

All that’s left is the tennis, and as the purists will ask, shouldn’t the tennis be enough? Well, yes. The tennis is supreme. Maybe just too supreme for its own good.

To the male challengers: please do something. Save your sport from the inevitable. Tennis needs you. And in the long run, Alcasinner need you too.