"I'm just shocked": Brad Gilbert highlights Jannik Sinner's one trait which is similar to Rafael Nadal

Famous tennis coach Brad Gilbert has big words of praise for Italy’s Jannik Sinner. The 24-year-old suffered a heartbreaking defeat in the final of the US Open on Sunday to Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz with a score of 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 in New York. With that, Sinner has also lost the top spot in the ATP rankings after spending 65 weeks at the top of the ladder.

The defeat can be considered a serious blow for Sinner, who came into the match on the back of registering 27 consecutive wins on the hard court since the start of 2024. It was Sinner’s fourth defeat in the final of a major competition this year, and all of those came against Alcaraz. The two first featured in the final of the Rome Masters, where Alcaraz came out on top in straight sets with a score of 7-6, 6-1. A few weeks later, both met once again, this time in the final of the French Open.

In that contest, Alcaraz snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and came out on top against Sinner in a five-set thrilling finale with a score of 4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 7-6. While doing that, he saved three championship points in the fourth set and won the contest, which lasted more than five hours and officially became the second-longest final in the history of tennis in the Open era.

Recently, Sinner was forced to retire from the final of the Cincinnati Open against Alcaraz because of illness. The final score of that match was 5-0. In between that, Sinner managed to win one major final against his competitor as well, which came at Wimbledon, where he came out on top in four sets to lift the title for the first time in his career with a score of 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.

Ex-coach of the former world number one Andy Murray, Gilbert, has recently featured in a video of the Served with Andy Roddick’s podcast, where he praised Sinner. Gilbert was of the opinion that it is ‘scary’ to see Sinner being so good at the age of 24. Gilbert stated that Sinner’s levels are ‘outrageous’ right now and also called him the mixture of two former world number ones, America’s Andre Agassi and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic.

“If you put Andre and Djokovic in a blender, you get Sinner,” said Gilbert. “His level is outrageous right now. I'm just shocked. And honestly, what's even more surprising is I don't think he's anywhere near the finished product. If you're 24 years old, and you're satisfied with where you are, then that's what happens to you.”

Gilbert then went on to highlight a unique feat in Sinner, which, according to him, is very similar to that of Rafael Nadal, where he is ‘humble’ and is ‘motivated’ to get better all the time. Gilbert also highlighted that having a competitor like Alcaraz also helps Sinner in getting better all the time, or else he will be left behind.

“If you're 24 years old, like Sinner, who seems to be a much older soul than he is, and is always focused on talking about the narrative about he doesn't think he's that good, I call bullshit,” said Gilbert. “But Rafa [Rafael Nadal] was like that. He's very humble. He's very motivated to get better. And I think that the fact that he has somebody in [Carlos] Alcaraz that he knows that if he doesn't get better, might, you know, eclipse him. So I think that, you know, keeps him motivated. And then that's, you know, for everybody else now, to potentially get in the mix.”

Gilbert then went on to highlight the gulf in class between Sinner, Alcaraz and rest of the players on the tour. Gilbert stated that in his opinion, he cannot see any player capable of winning back-to-back matches against Sinner and Alcaraz.

“I don't think it's possible at this moment, you know, unless I'm wrong, that anybody could beat those two guys back to back,” said Gilbert. “That's how good they are. And I hate comparing them to the big three, because it's like, they were amazing. But these two guys now are taking it and they're 24 and 22. Maybe we check back in 10 years, and it'll be the next two that wow, you know, but honestly, I thought we would be in a three to five year period parody of Yeah, who would be the guy? Well, they've erased that.”