French Tennis icon Believes Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz Are Below the Level of Rafael Nadal

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have won eight Grand Slams combined which is nowhere near Rafael Nadal's 22 majors.

French Tennis icon Believes Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz Are Below the Level of Rafael Nadal

Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal (X/The Tennis Letter)

Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz have been the most dominant players on the ATP Tour in the last two years. They have been lauded to be at the same level as the Big 3 (Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer). But, French Tennis icon Richard Gasquet does not believe that they are on the same level as Nadal.

Alcaraz and Sinner have dominated the past six Grand Slam tournaments, winning three each. This season, Sinner claimed the Australian Open in January before serving a three-month suspension for testing positive for clostebol, a banned substance. Upon his return to tour at the Italian Open, he reached the final.

He then got to the final of the Roland Garros and then lost to Alcaraz for the fifth consecutive time. Nonetheless, Sinner’s form has been impeccable over the last year. The 23-year-old has held onto the World No.1 ranking for over 52 weeks, winning three Grand Slam titles in the process.

On the other hand, Alcaraz has clearly been the best player this season. The Spaniard has four titles, including three during the clay-court season. He has won five Grand Slams in his career. But Alcaraz and Sinner are still miles away from Nadal’s 22 Grand Slams, of which 14 of them were claimed at Roland Garros.

Gasquet, who retired at the Roland Garros two weeks ago, faced Sinner in his final match as a professional tennis player and lost to the Italian in straight sets. In a conversation on Super Moscato show, he admitted there was nothing special he saw in Sinner and that the Italian and Alcaraz are not at Nadal’s level:

It’s hard to say. Nadal had incredible quality. I am convinced that at Roland Garros at his best level, he would be above Sinner and Alcaraz. When I played against Jannik, I didn’t play anything special. I am 39 years old. If I played against Rafa at the same level, he wouldn’t have given me more than two games.

Alcaraz and Sinner kicked off their grass-court season at the Queen’s Championships and the Terra Wortmann Open, respectively. The former is in the semi-finals of the Queen’s Club tournament, while the latter was knocked out by Alexander Bublik in the second round of the Terra Wortmann Open in Germany.

Richard Gasquet says Jannik Sinner has a long way to go before reaching Novak Djokovic’s prime

Jannik Sinner faced Novak Djokovic at the Roland Garros and defeated the 38-year-old in straight sets to reach the final. The match revealed the huge gap between the pair as Djokovic looks to be drawing close to retirement. However, in recent times, there have been comparisons between Sinner and Djokovic about their style of play and dominance in the men’s circuit.

Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner
Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner (Image via X/Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner HQ)

During the aforementioned conversation, Richard Gasquet praised Sinner’s progress on the court but admitted that the World No.1 still has quite a long way to go before he could catch up with the Serbian legend in his prime:

I played against Novak in 2015, when I was ranked tenth in the world. I lost 6:2, 6:2, 6,3. And then I was at the top level. Sinner is amazing, but I think he’s still below the big three. Of course, he will progress. This season, Djokovic is not playing at the same level as a few years ago, but he still defeated Alcaraz at the Australian Open. On the other hand, Jannik is 23 years old and Carlos is 22. We will have to wait until they reach their peak. Federer played better at 27-28 than at 22.

Gasquet faced Djokovic 21 times on the court while a professional player, winning just two and losing 19 times to the Serbian. Nonetheless, Djokovic is currently not competing in any ATP tournament and will head into the Wimbledon Championship, without a warm-up tournament.

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