Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner Would’ve Told Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal to ‘Move Over’ to Assert Dominance, Claims Jimmy Connors

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have now split the last eight Majors between them, becoming the first men’s pair to do so in the Open Era. In a one-sided US Open (if compared to the French Open and Wimbledon finals they played), Alcaraz secured a four-set win to lift his second Major of the season.

It was the first time Alcaraz reached a Grand Slam final without dropping a set. The Spaniard, with 42 winners and zero double faults against Sinner, ended the tournament winning 98 service games out of 101.

His victory helped him climb one step up to reach the top of the rankings, while Sinner dropped to the second spot after enjoying the No.1 ranking for 65 consecutive weeks. The last player to win a Major was Novak Djokovic, whose 24th Grand Slam title came at the 2023 US Open, and since then, only Sinner and Alcaraz have emerged victorious.

In the aftermath of the US Open final, former ATP player Jimmy Connors said what would have happened had Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal still been playing. He said on his Advantage Connors podcast:

What I like about these two guys, Sinner and Alcaraz, is that they know it’s their time. Even if Nadal and Federer were still around, too, they would want to say move over, boys. I like that. They have raised their game to that level. The other guys out there playing did not do that. They were waiting around for them to retire or something to happen, and say, it’s my turn now. Well, maybe it’s not.

The 22-year-old surpassed Nadal, becoming the second youngest man to add six Majors to his trophy cabinet. Against Sinner, he now holds a 10-5 head-to-head record and is 2-1 in Grand Slam finals.

This season, they met five times, with Sinner winning only the Wimbledon Championships, losing the US Open, Cincinnati Masters (gave the walkover), Italian Open, and the French Open. The defeat in New York meant Sinner couldn’t become the first man since Federer (2008) to defend the US Open title. The four-time Grand Slam champion has so far reached six finals and clinched two titles this year.

Spencer Segura feels Carlos Alcaraz would have defeated Rafael Nadal at the US Open

Former ATP player from America, Spencer Segura, during the Advantage Connors podcast, said he is convinced that had Rafael Nadal played Carlos Alcaraz in the US Open final, he would have suffered defeat.