Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner dominate the tennis scene - for Toni Nadal also because the competition has become weaker. The former successful coach sees only one player who can pose a threat to the duo.
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- Toni Nadal sees Alexander Zverev as the only player who can seriously challenge Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner at the moment if he plays more courageously and aggressively.
- According to Nadal, Zverev has enormous potential, but often fails mentally at crucial moments, even though he has everything he needs to play.
- Nadal and former professional Jo-Wilfried Tsonga agree that the competition in men's tennis used to be much stronger than it is today.
After the disappointment at Wimbledon last year (losing in the starting round), Alexander Zverev went to Mallorca to train with Toni Nadal and seek advice. He would have liked to have hired the uncle and former successful coach of Rafael Nadal as a coach to have him at his side at the first Grand Slam tournament of the new year in Melbourne: "I would like him to come to Australia with me," the German said in the autumn. But Toni Nadal did not want to extend his help and turned Zverev down. He no longer sees himself as a coach.
On the radio program "OndaCero", Toni Nadal gave his assessment before and after the Australian Open. For him, Carlos Alcaraz has everything from a tennis perspective, said Nadal.
"And on top of that, Alcaraz is lucky: he has weaker opponents. And I'm not saying that because I'm Rafael Nadal's uncle - not at all. I try to be unbiased," emphasizes the 64-year-old.
He adds: "Rafael or Djokovic used to play against Del Potro - and if Del Potro had a good day, he could beat them. Rafael and Federer used to play Wawrinka or Murray, and you knew that you would suffer and that the match would be complicated." Players like Andrei Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev were once thought to be at the top of the game, but have now disappeared.
Tsonga: "Competition was bigger 10 years ago"
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who retired in 2022, also recently summed up that the competition was much stronger more than ten years ago. "I'd like to see Alcaraz and Sinner compete one after the other against a younger Novak Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Murray and Del Potro. At the moment, it's just those two at their age," said Tsonga.
So who can challenge the two world ranking leaders Alcaraz and Sinner? "The only one who could stand up to them a little is Zverev," Nadal believes.
Zverev must take more risks
However, a few things would have to change for the German. "If he's prepared to fight ... ", Nadal hints. "Zverev has great ball control and a very good serve. I told Zverev that when he came to training. I said: 'Look, you have this serve - how many breaks will they take from you in a match? Two? Then play much more aggressively'." Because you're not like Rafael, who had to fight for every point. You know that they're going to take two breaks off you in a long match, so take a lot more risks," Nadal summarized.
In Melbourne, Zverev brought Alcaraz to the brink of defeat in the semi-final, but was unable to defeat the beleaguered Spaniard. "Zverev has a mental problem. He's obsessed with winning. Zverev had the match in hand, he had the chance to win the second set and when he served to win, he was broken. And his best shot is his serve. He comes back to win the match in the fifth set when he's serving to win the match and again ... fails at that moment," Nadal explains.
For him, Zverev is "better than Djokovic today" "If Zverev had won this match, he would probably have won the final as well. That would change him because it would give him extra confidence and take the pressure of having to win a Grand Slam off him," believes Toni Nadal.
He doesn't see João Fonseca or Jakub Mensik being able to keep up with Carlos in a year or two. "I don't know if one will emerge soon, but at the moment I don't know of any young players aged 18, 19 or 17 who are already showing signs of becoming number one," said Nadal, who also coached Félix Auger-Aliassime after his nephew. "Young players always cause upheaval, just as Federer did with Nadal and Nadal did with Djokovic," he explains.
