Two players, one tier, and a long way down
The US Open begins without the world’s most dominant player and with the defending champion barely match-fit. Jannik Sinner withdrew. Carlos Alcaraz has not played a competitive ATP match since April, when a wrist problem pulled him out of Barcelona. Opta has used the gap to measure something more interesting than either absence.
Start with what the pair did before they stopped. Sinner beat Alcaraz in the Monte-Carlo final, took back the No. 1 ranking, then swept Madrid and Rome. That made him the second man since 1990 to win all three clay Masters 1000 events in a single season, after Rafael Nadal in 2010. Rome also completed his Career Golden Masters, reached in 62 fewer main-draw appearances than Novak Djokovic needed.
Alcaraz got there first in January. His Australian Open title made him the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam, erasing a record Don Budge had held since 1938.
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The numbers behind the separation
Opta tracked win rates against opponents ranked outside the top 20, split by ranking tier, back to the first ATP season in 1990. Through the 1990s the gap between the top five and the players ranked six to ten averaged 6.0 percent. Across the last ten seasons it has stretched to roughly 9.3 percent.
The Big Four built the standard that created it. Between 2005 and 2019, Djokovic, Roger Federer, Nadal and Andy Murray took 54 of 60 Grand Slam titles, 107 of 135 Masters 1000 events, ten of fifteen ATP Finals and every Olympic singles gold. Nothing before or since comes close.
Sinner claimed the first five Masters 1000 titles of 2026, beating Alexander Zverev in straight sets at four of them. The tier below cracked in the process.
A season that broke the pattern
Only 50 percent of top-ten entrants at Masters 1000 events reached the last 16 this year, 27 of 54. In the format’s history since 1990, only 2001 produced a lower rate. Widen it to the top 20 and the figure drops to 43.1 percent, the fourth lowest ever recorded.
Roland Garros went further. Sinner wilted against Juan Manuel Cerundolo in the heat, Djokovic lost in five sets to Joao Fonseca, and for the first time in the Open Era no former major champion reached the second week of a Grand Slam. Zverev walked off with the trophy.
Among players ranked six to ten, only Alex de Minaur and Taylor Fritz have reached more than one second week at a major in 2026. Flushing Meadows will start to show whether that is an injury-scarred anomaly or the shape of the tour from here.
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