{"id":396530,"date":"2026-01-29T08:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/396530\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T08:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:19:15","slug":"as-jannik-sinner-and-carlos-alcaraz-dominate-straight-sets-matches-are-skyrocketing-at-the-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/396530\/","title":{"rendered":"As Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz dominate, straight-sets matches are skyrocketing at the Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

On two consecutive nights at the Australian Open, two different players have sat at the press conference table feeling miles away from the title.<\/p>\n

More from the Australian Open<\/p>\n

Alex de Minaur put together his best home slam to date and didn’t really come close to touching Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, the top men’s seed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just 24 hours later, Ben Shelton’s hopes of upsetting Jannik Sinner were virtually extinguished in the first set when Sinner raced out to a 4-1 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The reigning champion wound up defeating the young American in straight sets, just as he did last year, and did so a little more comprehensively this time around.<\/p>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Ben Shelton (pictured) had another promising Australian Open campaign ended by Jannik Sinner. (Getty Images: Fred Lee)<\/p>\n

De Minaur and Shelton technically aren’t far away from titles. Had they won their quarterfinals, just two more victories would have them holding the trophy.<\/p>\n

The only problem is that there appears to be two immovable objects in their way in the form of Alcaraz and Sinner.<\/p>\n

While the likes of de Minaur, Shelton and the rest of the top 10 are always making incremental improvements on their games, nothing seems to be able to make up the ground between them and the top two.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alcaraz and Sinner’s quarterfinal wins as well as Novak Djokovic’s stroke of luck against Lorenzo Musetti<\/a> means this year is the first time since 2013 that the top four seeds in the men’s draw have all successfully made it to the semifinals.<\/p>\n

\"Novak<\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic (pictured) received a stroke of luck to reach the quarterfinals.\u00a0 (Getty Images: Clive Brunskill)<\/p>\n

Back then Djokovic had begun to breach the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal duopoly on men’s tennis. Now, Alcaraz and Sinner await their own challenger.<\/p>\n

The competitiveness problems aren’t solely in the men’s draw either.<\/p>\n

If you’ve been watching this year’s Australian Open and feel like it’s been less competitive than previous years, it’s because it has been.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through the quarterfinals stage of the tournament, 37 women’s matches have gone to three sets, down from 43 last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Coco<\/p>\n

11 of the 12 women’s matches from the fourth round onwards have finished in straight-sets. (Getty Imagesf: Darrian Traynor)<\/p>\n

In the men’s draw, just 20 matches have gone through to five sets, down from 29 last year at the same stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Straight-sets results in the men’s draw have also skyrocketed, up from 45 for the entire tournament last year to 61 and counting this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the fourth round onwards in the women’s draw, just one of 12 matches has gone to three sets. Each of the four quarterfinals ended in straight-sets.<\/p>\n

Each of the top six seeds in the men’s and women’s draw made it to the quarterfinals, although Aryna Sabalenka is the only member of the top four women to make it through to the semis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sinner has now won a remarkable 22 consecutive sets against Shelton, but doesn’t believe in the notion that the gap between he and Alcaraz and the rest of the men’s cohort is widening.<\/p>\n

“I had to overcome very tough challenges,” the reigning champion told reporters at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n

“Every day and every match day, we never take the opponent for granted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The season is long, many things can change. Great players are coming up. Novak is still here and Sascha [Zverev] is playing great tennis.”<\/p>\n

\"Carlos<\/p>\n

Carlos Alcaraz (pictured) made light work of Alex de Minaur in his quarterfinal match-up earlier in the week. (Getty Images: Clive Brunskill)<\/p>\n

Djokovic, having been the third member of a dominant trio, jokingly said he would support whoever winds up being the third man to join the Sinner-Alcaraz tier.<\/p>\n

“It’s good for our sport,” Djokovic said of the Sinner-Alcaraz dominance.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

“These kinds of rivalries and the contrast of the personalities and the styles of play are very good for tennis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Are they [Sinner and Alcaraz] better than me and most of the other guys right now? Yes, they are. The quality and the level is amazing, it’s great, it’s phenomenal, but does that mean I walk out with a white flag? No.”<\/p>\n

Just under two decades ago, Djokovic himself walked head-first into the Federer-Nadal rivalry out of the blue and wound up becoming the most successful men’s player in grand slam history.<\/p>\n

Now he and the rest of the tennis world awaits the next challenger who can step up to test Sinner and Alcaraz.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On two consecutive nights at the Australian Open, two different players have sat at the press conference table…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[21399,870,811,101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-396530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-australian-open","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}