Former player says Alcaraz is mentally “light years away” from Sinner
The comparisons between the two stars continue and Sky Sports Italy commentator Paolo Bertolucci believes Sinner has the mental edge.
The tennis world has set its sights on Jannik Sinner. The Italian is the man of the moment after beating the odds and becoming the Australian Open champion.
The 22-year-old star was regarded as a serious contender to win the title in Melbourne and he ended up delivering when most needed. Sinner won the first Grand Slam tournament of his career by defeating Daniil Medvedev coming back from two sets down, proving that the old Sinner with shaky confidence is part of the past.
But before showing his quality and fighting spirit in the last round, he managed to defeat Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. After beating the Serb in the ATP Nitto Finals round robin and the Davis Cup final, he played at his best yet again to end up raising his hand in front of the 10-time Australian Open champion.
Bertolucci: “Alcaraz is light years away from Sinner”
Djokovic himself admitted last year that Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Holger Rune will be the next Big Three when asked about the future of tennis.
While Rune hasn’t taken a definitive step towards stardom, Alcaraz and Sinner have already won majors and are ready to compete at the highest level in the most important tournaments.
Although a big part of the focus was on Alcaraz over the last year, now it seems that this dynamics could change in favor of the Italian, who has started being considered stronger than the Murcia native by some analysts and fans.
One of the pundits who believe that Sinner is the better player of the two is the former player Paolo Bertolucci. The current Sky Sports Italy commentator thinks that his fellow countryman holds the edge when comparing both players’ mental strenght.
“In my opinion, Alcaraz is great technically, even physically, but mentally he is light years away from Sinner”, he said in an interview with Fanpage.
“He looks for something else besides just winning the point, many times he seems to have fun and involve the audience because he has a tennis made of ‘special effects’”, he added.
Whether it seems impossible to predict which player will have a better career, they will likely meet many times on the tennis courts and the fans will be the winners. Both men have met seven times so far in their careers, with a 4-3 advantage for the Italian.