Ultra-competitive Women’s Tennis Contrasts Sharply With Men’s Duopoly

One of the reasons why tennis is definitely the greatest individual sport and arguably the greatest sport of all is that it is so many different sports in one. In addition to the classic surface divide between hardcourt, clay, and grass, there is also the divide between men’s tennis and women’s, with tennis the only major professional sport to enjoy anything like parity of esteem (and attention) between the men’s and women’s sides of the sport.

At the moment, as the WTA Finals in Riyadh have just proved, it is undeniable that the ultra-competitiveness of women’s tennis is contrasting sharply with the duopoly that Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz have established in men’s tennis.

Men’s Duopoly Has Replaced The Big Three

Over the last five years or so, the era of The Big Three has finally come to an end, with Novak Djokovic now the last man standing of that truly mythical trivalry. However, even he is diminished to the extent that he could not take up his place this week at the ATP Tour Finals in Turin.

It had been widely assumed that when the extraordinary powers of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic finally began to wane, there would be far greater opportunity for other men to compete for Major titles and that there would be many more different Major-winners than there had been in the last two decades, when The Big Three had established a virtual stranglehold on the sport’s biggest prizes.

To everyone’s surprise, the reverse is probably true.

The era of The Big Three has now given way to the era of The Huge Two, with Alcaraz and Sinner arguably becoming even more dominant over the rest of men’s tennis than The Big Three were at their peak. In fact, even when The Big Three were at their peak, there were still genuine contenders to their many crowns, notably Andy Murray, who won three Majors (including two Wimbledons) and became the only other man in their period of dominance to reach World No. 1. He was matched in Major totals by Stan Wawrinka, and there were also at least a couple of genuine outliers who occasionally upset the odds and won a Major title, notably the US Open, such as Juan Martin del Potro in 2009 and Marin Cilic in 2014.

Effectively, for all their utter brilliance, The Big Three were also utterly inspirational, forcing players like Murray and Wawrinka to raise their game so dramatically that at their peak they could not only match the members of The Big Three but even beat them, as both Murray and Wawrinka managed several times, notably against Djokovic, in Major finals in the middle of the last decade.

By complete contrast, Alcaraz and Sinner have become so dominant over every other male player, including Djokovic, who lost to one or the other of them in semi-finals at the Majors last year, that it is becoming almost impossible to conceive of anyone else beating them, especially at the Majors. Djokovic, of course, rose to become “The Third Man” who destroyed the original men’s tennis duopoly of Federer and Nadal. Still, in this generation, there does not appear to be such a third force, let alone a fourth or fifth force (à la Murray and Wawrinka), to compete alongside Sinner and Alcaraz.

With Holger Rune, who has often declared himself to be the Djokovic to Sinner and Alcaraz’s Federer and Nadal, having suffered a serious injury last month that will rule him out for at least the start of next season, including the Australian Open, it is increasingly difficult to envisage anyone else emerging to challenge Alcaraz and Sinner consistently.

For example, both Jack Draper and Ben Shelton made tremendous progress this year. Still, Draper’s season was curtailed by injuries (yet again), and Shelton has found that even his huge, near-150mph serving is not quite enough on its own against the genius returning of both Sinner and Alcaraz.

Indeed, what began as a joke might become a punchline that sticks in the craw of every other male tennis player. The increasing use of the compound word “Sincaraz” to refer to Sinner and Alcaraz and their domination of men’s tennis could eventually be extended to encompass men’s tennis as a whole, given their duopoly of the sport, which currently shows no signs of ending.

The Contrast With the Women’s Game

The contrast with the women’s game could not be greater, as the 2025 season as a whole and the WTA Finals in particular have demonstrated.

Whereas Alcaraz and Sinner have won the last eight Majors between them, or every Slam in 2024 and 2025, four different women won the Majors in 2025, with Madison Keys finally breaking her Major duck in Melbourne, Coco Gauff claiming her second Slam Singles title in Paris, Iga Swiatek surprising the world (and herself) by winning Wimbledon, and World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka finally winning the Major title that her dominant 2025 deserved when she retained her title in New York.

In addition to those four, there are numerous other genuine contenders for Major titles. They are either players who have already won Slams, such as Elena Rybakina, who defeated Sabalenka in the Riyadh final, Barbora Krejčíková, and Markéta Vondroušová, or players who have demonstrated the potential to win Slams, notably Amanda Anisimova, who reached the finals of Wimbledon and the US Open this year, and Mirra Andreeva, who won Indian Wells and only just missed out on reaching the WTA Finals after a stunning season.

Also, unlike the men’s game, the women’s game even has a magnificent outlier, in the mould of a del Potro – a player who might just be the most naturally talented player of their generation, but who has been ravaged by injuries throughout their career. That is Karolína Muchová, who, at her best, as she was in reaching the 2023 French Open Final and the 2024 US Open semifinal, might just be the closest that there has ever been to a female Federer.

Women Are Winning the Real Battle of the Sexes in Tennis

It is in this context, where there are so many more female contenders for the biggest prizes in tennis than there are male contenders, that the recent confirmation of “The Battle of the Sexes 2025” was so disappointing. As Catherine Whitaker, the co-host of the Tennis Podcast, told the BBC when the Aryna Sabalenka v Nick Kyrgios exhibition match was announced, “I see absolutely nothing to be gained for women’s tennis – I see only bleakness.”

Whitaker is right, because, as she went on to explain, Sabalenka is on the proverbial hiding to nothing: “If Sabalenka wins, she beats a man who is unfit and has been a total irrelevance for several years. What does she win? Nothing…If Kyrgios wins, he and others of the same mind will claim it legitimises everything he’s already spewing out…I find it utterly ludicrous that this is going to happen in 2025.”

It is “utterly ludicrous” that this exhibition is happening at the end of a year in which women’s tennis has comprehensively proven that it is far more competitive than the men’s game, possessing both more current champions and more potential champions.

That is the real battle of the sexes in tennis, and the women are winning it hands down. So, rather than there being a pointless exhibition between a current female champion and a male has-been, a challenge should be thrown down to all other male players outside the “Sincaraz” duopoly, including Kyrgios: raise your game and prove that men’s tennis is deserving of the same attention and interest as women’s.