Carlos Alcaraz at the top of his game, is stronger than Jannik Sinner's best, according to tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou.
Sinner has been the dominant player on the ATP Tour in 2024 as he won eight titles - including the Australian Open, US Open and ATP Finals - and finished the campaign as the year-end No 1.
He had a 73-6 win-loss record this season, but interestingly three of those defeats have come against Alcaraz.
The Spaniard leads their head-to-head 6-4 with Sinner's last win coming in the semi-final of the China Open last October.
Mouratoglou - who currently coaches Naomi Osaka while his CV also includes coaching the great Serena Williams to 10 Grand Slam titles - believes Sinner's movement and aggression put him above most players.
However, the tennis mentor feels Alcaraz is the one player who can keep up with those features while he also believes the Spaniard is better than his rival when he is at his best.
"So far I see Alcaraz mostly beating him because Alcaraz can create more," the Frenchman told Tennis Majors. "He has this extra power and he can fight with him in terms of movement also.
"The thing is, Alcaraz is making quite a lot of unforced errors where Sinner doesn't. So the matches between them there are a lot of ups and downs and it changes often.
"You know, the one is leading, then the other one [takes over] because when Alcaraz plays at his best I think he is able to be better than Sinner."
The key difference between the two rising stars of the men's game is Sinner's consistency.
Mouratoglou added: "But he cannot play like this the whole match so Sinner is always stable. That's why the matches are so close every time.
"Sinner can hit a winner on every single shot. That's the feeling and it is quite disturbing. You can never relax, you cannot build because you are always in danger, always on every shot.
"But what I think the most important thing is not that you are in danger on every shot, which is the case, it is that he does it with consistency. Everything is controlled. He has this level of aggressiveness with the control at the same time and that is what makes him so special.
"I think Sinner really plays the modern game at his best."
