'Things can change': Jim Courier sees hope for Jannik Sinner in Carlos Alcaraz rivalry despite another heartbreaking defeat

Former world number one Jim Courier believes that things ‘can change’ for Jannik Sinner despite losing another major final to his rival, Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz. The 24-year-old was at the receiving end in the final of the US Open to the young Spaniard, who was simply unstoppable on the day.

Alcaraz came out on top in four sets with a score of 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 on Sunday in New York to lift the US Open title for the second time in his career. With that, Alcaraz has overtaken Sinner to become the new world number one after a gap of nearly two years.

The defeat can be considered a serious blow for Sinner, who came into the match on the back of registering 27 consecutive wins on the hard court since the start of 2024. It was Sinner’s fourth defeat in the final of a major competition this year, and all of those came against Alcaraz. The two first featured in the final of the Rome Masters, where Alcaraz came out on top in straight sets with a score of 7-6, 6-1. A few weeks later, both met once again, this time in the final of the French Open.

In that contest, Alcaraz snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and came out on top against Sinner in a five-set thrilling finale with a score of 4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 7-6. While doing that, he saved three championship points in the fourth set and won the contest, which lasted more than five hours and officially became the second-longest final in the history of tennis in the Open era.

Clinical Alcaraz

Recently, Sinner was forced to retire from the final of the Cincinnati Open against Alcaraz because of illness. The final score of that match was 5-0. In between that, Sinner managed to win one major final against his competitor as well, which came at Wimbledon, where he came out on top in four sets to lift the title for the first time in his career with a score of 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.

Former world number one Courier spoke to the Tennis Channel after the match, where he was asked about whether Sinner is struggling with the ‘Alcaraz’ problem, after having won just once against the Spaniard in the last seven meetings since the start of 2024. In response to that, Courier stated that while Alcaraz continues to dominate Sinner, that does not mean that the Italian tennis player cannot bounce back and find ways to become lethal against his fiercest rival on the court.

Courier stated that while Sinner has lost more often than not against Alcaraz in the recent past, the reality is that the matches were extremely close and Sinner was within touching distance of securing a win. Courier also compared Sinner and Alcaraz’s rivalry with that of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, where both continued to face each other in the final of the competition, something, according to him, did not even happen at the time of the rivalry between Switzerland’s Roger Federer and Spain’s Rafael Nadal.

“I know we're going to talk,” said Courier. “Obviously, we're going to compare these guys to the big three as they track longer in their career. But for me right now, the only comparison I think is apt is Martina [Martina Navratilova] and Chrissie [Chris Evert] because they are just meeting in final after final. And maybe Roger and Rafa had that for a while before Novak got better. But there were waves in Chrissie and Martina's rivalry where one of them had like six or seven wins, and then the other would win like eight of nine. So these things can change, and Jannik Sinner is not going to rest easily until he finds a way to get through there with more consistency. He's lost a lot of close ones, to be fair, too, in that run. He's had match points. It's not like he's getting blown out all the time, but obviously the numbers don't lie there.”