Swiss icon Roger Federer gave his verdict on the blossoming rivalry between World No.1 Carlos Alcaraz and World No. 2 Jannik Sinner, who seem poised to battle it out at the very top echelons of modern
tennis for the foreseeable future.
“The rivalry that Carlos and Jannik are building is incredible. They play unbelievably,” the 44-year-old said.
“The 2025 Roland Garros final was one of the best matches of all time. The world stopped to watch Paris, and it’s great that our sport can create moments like that,” he added.
Federer reflected on Sinner’s Wimbledon fixture against Grigor Dimitrov, who also plays the single-handed backhand like the Swiss icon embodied, and saw it as a blueprint for how he would have approached the Italian.
“At Wimbledon, when Grigor was playing against Jannik and I was sitting there, that made it easy to think how it could’ve been because Grigor plays very similar to how I played.”
“I think it was one of the first times I thought how would it have been to play Jannik. I didn’t feel that way watching Jannik against Novak Djokovic at the Shanghai Masters,”
“I was just watching great tennis because they both played very different to how I play.”
“Now with Sinner at one time I thought “Okay, now I understand how I would probably play against Jannik,” he revealed.
The 20-time Grand Slam champion Federer believes he sees a bit of himself in Spaniard Alcaraz, particularly in their approach to the game.
“Carlos, when I see him, I feel like there’s more similarity in terms of our decisions on when to hit a drop shot, when to come to the net, how offensive or passive to play, because we both like to play on our terms,” the Swiss icon said.
“So I put myself more into Carlos’s mindset and skin,” he added.
