Two absences that say plenty
The men’s draw at the US Open opens without its world number one. Jannik Sinner has pulled out. Carlos Alcaraz is back, but only just: the defending champion at Flushing Meadows has not played an ATP match since April, when a wrist problem forced him out of Barcelona.
That withdrawal came just days after a major swing in the season. Sinner had beaten Alcaraz in the Monte-Carlo Masters final to take back the world No. 1 spot. The Italian then won Madrid and Rome as well. Only the second player since 1990 to sweep all three clay-court Masters 1000 events in the same season. The first was Rafael Nadal, in 2010.
The pair had already stamped their mark on the year. In January, in Melbourne, Alcaraz became the youngest player in history to complete the Career Grand Slam, erasing a record held by Don Budge since 1938. In May, in Rome, Sinner completed the Career Golden Masters. The second player ever to do it, and in 62 fewer attempts than Novak Djokovic.
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The top five pull away, while 6-10 fall behind
Opta has gone back through the numbers to the competition’s first season in 1990 to measure the gap. The verdict is clear.
The top five’s win rate against players ranked outside the top 20 climbed between 2009 (92.8%) and 2015 (92.6%). In the 1990s and 2000s, the norm was closer to 80%. In 2024, the figure rose back to 90.1%, the year Sinner hit his next level.
The gap between the 1-5 group and the 6-10 group tells the same story. It averaged 6.0% across the 1990-1999 decade. Over the past 10 seasons, it has grown to around 9.3%.
The 11-20 bracket, meanwhile, has slipped a little. The tour has got deeper: players outside the top 20 are serving bigger and hanging in rallies longer than they used to. Making a living at the top has become tougher, unless you are right at the summit.
The Big Four era explains part of the picture. Between 2005 and 2019, Djokovic, Federer, Nadal and Murray collected 54 of the 60 Grand Slam titles, 107 of the 135 Masters 1000 titles, 10 of the 15 season-ending Masters and every men’s singles Olympic gold medal.
2026, a season out of the ordinary
Sinner has won the first five Masters 1000 events of the year. He beat Alexander Zverev in straight sets in four of them: the Indian Wells semi-finals, the Miami semi-finals, the Monte-Carlo semi-finals, and then the Madrid final.
After that, things dropped off quickly. Only 50% of the top 10 players entered in this season’s Masters 1000 events have reached the last 16, with 27 from 54 making it that far. Since the format began in 1990, only 2001 has been worse, at 46.1%. Stretch it to the top 20 and the figure falls to 43.1%, the fourth-lowest total in the history of the format.
In Grand Slams, the picture is less grim, with 64.3% of top 10 players reaching the second week. But in the 6-10 bracket, only Alex de Minaur and Taylor Fritz have done it more than once this year.
Roland Garros provided the clearest warning sign. Sinner collapsed in the heat against Juan Manuel Cerundolo, while Djokovic went down in five sets to João Fonseca. For the first time in the Open Era, no former major winner reached the second week of a Grand Slam. Zverev took advantage to claim his first major title.
Normal service resumed at Wimbledon. Sinner beat Djokovic and then Zverev to retain his title.
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