{"id":108443,"date":"2025-07-31T20:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T20:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/108443\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T20:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T20:33:10","slug":"the-most-likely-player-to-challenge-jannik-sinner-and-carlos-alcaraz-at-grand-slams-has-been-named-by-barry-cowan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/108443\/","title":{"rendered":"The most likely player to challenge Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz at Grand Slams has been named by Barry Cowan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barry Cowan has sought to predict which male tennis players might soon be able to break up the dominance of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a topic that has been heavily debated over the last few months, as their stranglehold over the ATP has seemingly only grown stronger.<\/p>\n

They have shared the last seven Grand Slam titles amongst one another, and contested the last two major finals too.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s worth remembering that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal once found themselves in a similar position to Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> and Jannik Sinner<\/a>, before Novak Djokovic emerged to upset the party.<\/p>\n

Now, speaking exclusively to Tennishead<\/strong>, Cowan has theorised which young stars might follow in his legendary footsteps.<\/p>\n

Barry Cowan predicts who can challenge Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner<\/strong><\/p>\n

Asked about who might be able to upset this rock-solid duopoly at the apex of the men\u2019s sport, Cowan naturally struggled to find an outstanding candidate.<\/p>\n

After all, they are by far and away the best players in the world, and nobody looks likely to dispel that notion anytime soon.<\/p>\n\nYear<\/strong><\/td>\nEvent<\/strong><\/td>\nWinner<\/strong><\/td>\nFinalist<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2025<\/td>\nWimbledon<\/td>\nJannik Sinner<\/td>\nCarlos Alcaraz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2025<\/td>\nFrench Open<\/td>\nCarlos Alcaraz<\/td>\nJannik Sinner<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2025<\/td>\nAustralian Open<\/td>\nJannik Sinner<\/td>\nAlexander Zverev<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2024<\/td>\nUS Open<\/td>\nJannik Sinner<\/td>\nTaylor Fritz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2024<\/td>\nWimbledon<\/td>\nCarlos Alcaraz<\/td>\nNovak Djokovic<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2024<\/td>\nFrench Open<\/td>\nCarlos Alcaraz<\/td>\nAlexander Zverev<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n2024<\/td>\nAustralian Open<\/td>\nJannik Sinner<\/td>\nDaniil Medvedev<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Last seven male Grand Slam results<\/p>\n

Alas, the former professional tennis star did conjure up a few names: \u201cRight now, I don\u2019t see anyone knocking off Djokovic. <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, he\u2019s obviously not been able to win the last seven majors, because that\u2019s been dominated by Sinner and Alcaraz, but, you know, I\u2019m not ruling Djokovic out, because when you\u2019ve won it 24 times, and he\u2019s made semi-finals at all three majors this year, so, you know, he\u2019s not far off, but, you know, as things stand at the moment, for someone to win a major, the way the rankings are, you might have to get through three of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, one of them might lose, so you\u2019ve got to get through two of them, and how gruelling that is, physically and mentally. So I think that the tier below, and obviously we know who they are, I still feel that they\u2019ve got to improve their level.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, the older you get, the harder it is to be able to do, because you\u2019ve almost reached your ceiling. The exciting part for the younger players is that we don\u2019t know what the ceiling could be.<\/p>\n

\"NextPhoto by Corinne Dubreuil\/ATP Tour via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Draper is definitely in that. Mensik is definitely in that. Fonseca is definitely in that. There, for me, is an absolute star for the future, but you know, that\u2019s really further down the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of the majors, and that\u2019s where, obviously, the Masters come into play, massively. And the ATP 500, and we\u2019ve got two big tournaments coming up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, you know, Toronto is a massive tournament for that next group, because you haven\u2019t got Djokovic, you haven\u2019t got Alcaraz, you haven\u2019t got Sinner. Obviously, Draper\u2019s not available; he\u2019s pulled out through injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo an opportunity knocks for that next tier to get some momentum and win some matches, going into Cincinnati and then obviously the final major of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He finished by adding American Ben Shelton<\/a> to the list, outlining his belief that a Grand Slam could certainly be in his future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This came after Cowan assessed Emma Raducanu\u2019s chances at the US Open<\/a> later this summer.<\/p>\n

Ben Shelton is knocking on the door at Grand Slams<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that Shelton performs best when the pressure is high.<\/p>\n

After all, some of his very best tennis seems to emerge across the five-set format that the Grand Slams offer.<\/p>\n

In turn, this occasionally can leave the rest of his year wanting, with opportunities to win titles squandered due to a lack of focus, consistency or something else entirely.<\/p>\n

\"BenPhoto by Mert Alper Dervis\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But, with a unique, big-serving left-handed game style, he has all the tools to trouble anybody on tour.<\/p>\n

Despite having only been around the professional circuit for three years, he has already reached two major semi-finals and another two quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s knocking on the door, and sooner or later, it feels like Shelton could break through his glass ceiling and upset Alcaraz and Sinner\u2019s Grand Slam dominance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barry Cowan has sought to predict which male tennis players might soon be able to break up the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":108444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[62608,1466,1690,1824,62,1464,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-108443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-barry-cowan","9":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","10":"tag-exclusives","11":"tag-jannik-sinner","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114949757602525044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}