The SinCaraz Dependency
Has tennis turned too codependent for its own good? Also, spending two months on the tennis road, and sharing players' quotes as food for thought.
Welcome back!
Back home, writing all this, after having been on the tennis road since January 2. It’s been quite the ride! My only issue, as I’m back in France now, is that I’ve spent nearly two months in the sun and I've absolutely gotten used to it, but right now in France, the mood is more about flooding so…
Anyway, in this new edition, I’m sharing some thoughts about tennis-on-the-road, some players’ thoughts (Lehecka, Siniakova, Ostapenko, Sinner, Alcaraz) that have recently triggered my brain, and a plea to tennis for SinCaraz: 1) Don’t create the monster that will come to bite you, 2) Keep Them Hermès.
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By the way, I wrote this piece for The Second Serve about Arthur Fils quicker than quick return to a Tour final, if you’re interested.
The SinCaraz Dependency
About putting too much of one’s eggs in one basket.
We’ve been there, but then they were Four… So it didn’t seem that kind of obsessive-behaviour-adjacent. But that start of 2026 has been starting the way I feared it would when I wrote this season preview, including this part:
And the feeling I had while hearing Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner answer questions again and again about their rivalry and the Djokovic/Federer/Nadal comparison is that they’ve already reached that point. They’re over it. Especially the Italian. Not in a “they’re so mad about it, they’re over it” but in a “we got all the memo, we understand all the assignments, we know the stakes, can we move on” way. I am even more convinced now, as we’re just in February, that these two need a third man. To focus on and to see people focus on.
Putting The Value Of Men’s Tennis In Four Hands
Don’t get me wrong, I perfectly know they’re also making an absolute bank thanks to that duopoly situation (just like FedAl turned into a lucrative association): every tournament that can afford it and is allowed to will give them a seven-figure to be in its field. They could surely push it to an 8-figure figure for exhibitions. But my point remains that it cannot be good for their own longevity and so business to turn into a “death, taxes, and SinCaraz”. I mean, surely also it’s going to get their value down too because, sorry, at some point, if you get caviar every weekend, it doesn’t feel like it deserves to jump up and down about it and be ready to fork a lot of money or a lot of personal time to keep having a chance at having it. You know what? I’ll catch them next week!
Also, side note: I had to laugh at the faux outrage about the money Alcaraz and Sinner reportedly got to play in Doha because, babes (BABES!), it’s still miles and miles away from what Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic would get from tournaments and exhibitions back in the day. And there was nobody to be shocked at it then, so please.
Tennis actually would need it even more. Maybe also a fourth or a fifth volunteer. Why? Because you cannot keep selling an entire sport by putting forward just two names and then praying they reach the finals. It is not sustainable. It shouldn’t even have started to be this way. If the message you send out is that men’s tennis right now is only about Sinner and Alcaraz, you’re putting yourself with a foot off the ledge. And so each time they lose or each time they lose before meeting each other, people start to feel that the tournament is a failure or that it’s already over. I don’t think that’s good business… Let alone respectful of the rest of the field, but
