Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner continue to scale new peaks in tennis

The 2025 ATP Tour concluded on 16 November with Jannik Sinner defeating Carlos Alcaraz 7-6(4), 7-5 in the Nitto ATP Finals championship match at Turin’s Inalpi Arena. The two-hour, 15-minute contest, played before a partisan Italian crowd, provided a measured end to a season in which Alcaraz and Sinner won all four majors and the year-end title between them — a sweep of the sport’s biggest prizes last achieved by the Big Three in multiple years, though never in quite this concentrated fashion by two players so young.

Alcaraz, who turned 22 in May, finished the year as ATP Year-End No. 1 presented by PIF for the second time (after 2022), amassing 12,050 points to Sinner’s 11,500. His 71-9 match record led the Tour, underpinned by a Tour-high eight titles: Roland Garros (d. Sinner in the final), the US Open (d. Sinner again), three Masters 1000 events (Monte-Carlo, Rome, Cincinnati) and three ATP 500s (Rotterdam, Queen’s Club, Tokyo). The Spaniard reached nine consecutive finals from April through September and became the youngest player to claim multiple titles on clay, grass, and hard courts across his major haul.

Sinner, 24, closed with a 58-6 record and six titles, including the Australian Open, Wimbledon, the Rolex Paris Masters, Beijing, Vienna, and his second straight Nitto ATP Finals. His indoor campaign was particularly strong: a 31-match winning streak on the surface dating back two years, culminating in a flawless 5-0 week in Turin (no sets dropped, 88.2 per cent career winning percentage at the event, the highest in history). The Italian’s late surge — back-to-back Big Titles in Paris and Turin — narrowed his career Big Titles count to 11, three behind Alcaraz’s 14.

Their six meetings, all finals, went 4-2 in Alcaraz's favor (10-6 overall head-to-head). Sinner took Wimbledon and Turin; Alcaraz claimed Roland Garros and the US Open, plus earlier encounters. The rivalry now stands as the defining one of the post-Big Three era, echoing Federer-Nadal in intensity and surface variety, though still in its early stages.

Beyond the top two, Alexander Zverev finished third in the rankings, Novak Djokovic fourth (reaching the 100-title milestone earlier in the year before a quieter second half), and Felix Auger-Aliassime returned to the top five. The year-end top 10 included three first-timers — Lorenzo Musetti, Ben Shelton, and Jack Draper — signalling a gradual change behind the leading pair.

Alcaraz’s season ranks among the strongest by a 22-year-old: his points total is the highest year-end figure since Djokovic’s 2015 dominance, and his eight titles match peaks achieved by Nadal and Federer at similar ages. Sinner, despite a three-month absence early in the year, posted a win percentage (90.6 per cent) that would have secured year-end No. 1 in most seasons. The gap at the top — 12,050 to 11,500 points, then a drop to Zverev’s 5,160 — is the widest since the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.

Turin underlined the new hierarchy. Alcaraz arrived having already locked year-end No. 1 with a 3-0 round-robin record; Sinner, unbeaten indoors for two years, proved the better player on the night. As the rankings freeze until January, both will reflect on a year that, in different ways, belonged to each of them — and, more broadly, to the shift they represent.

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner - Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images