Carlos Alcaraz snubs rivals as he explains reason behind Jannik Sinner Wimbledon loss

Carlos Alcaraz has suggested that none of his rivals show a higher level than he and Jannik Sinner do whenever they face each other. The world No. 2 suffered a 4-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 defeat to Sinner in Sunday's Wimbledon final - his first loss here in three years.

Exactly five weeks ago, the Spaniard saved three championship points to beat Sinner in the French Open final. But he couldn't mount a similar comeback in SW19, and later explained why the Italian managed to beat him on Centre Court.

Alcaraz led his head-to-head with Sinner by eight wins to four losses before today, and had not lost a match to the world No. 1 since the Beijing semi-final in October 2023.

The Italian has now earned his fifth win over Alcaraz, and has four Grand Slam titles to his rival's five. And Alcaraz gave a glowing review of their growing rivalry in defeat.

"First of all, I just really, really happy about having this rivalry with him. I think it's great for us, and it is great for the tennis," the 22-year-old said.

"Every time we are playing against each other, I think our level is really high. I think we don't watch a level like this, if I'm honest with you. I don't see any player playing against each other, you know, having the level that we are playing when we face each other.

"I think, as I said many, many times, this rivalry, it's coming better and better. We're building really great rivalry because we're playing final of a Grand Slam, final of Masters, the best tournaments in the world. It's going to be better and better.

"Just really grateful for that because it gives me the opportunity to just give my 100 per cent every practice, every day. Just to be better, thanks to that. The level that I have to maintain and I have to raise if I want to beat Jannik is really high. So I'm just really grateful for that."

While Alcaraz enjoys facing Sinner, he was left feeling helpless on the court at times on Sunday,telling his team that the Italian was playing "better". And he later explained exactly what Sinner did better than him.

Alcaraz continued: "I didn't feel down physically at all during the match. It was all about, you know, he was pushing me to the limit in every point. So mentally sometimes it's really tough to maintain the good focus or the good level during the whole match when you see the opponent just playing such a great tennis.

"At some points I didn't know what I had to do in the match because from the baseline I was feeling he was better than me, and I couldn't do anything about it.

"I think the big key was about the second serve. He was returning really well there the second serve that I was hitting. Thanks to that, he was in the position to attack in the second ball every time.

"So it was really difficult when you are feeling that you just defending all the time and running from side to side all the time."

But Alcaraz wasn't feeling negative in defeat. "Right now I'm just, as I said, I'm not bad at all. I'm just happy. I'm smiling because in my head it was about playing the final and being grateful for that," he added.

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