"In five years, it will be Alcaraz, Sinner and Rune": Ljubicic predicts new big three featuring current heralded talents

Ivan Ljubicic predicted a new Big-3 with the future dominance of young stars Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Holger Rune.

The former world No. 3 shared his insights on the players who are likely to dominate the ATP tour in the coming years. Ljubicic praised the rapid rise of world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz in the rankings and also highlighted the potential of Holger Rune and Italian talent Jannik Sinner.

"Five years from now, most likely Alcaraz, Sinner, and Rune will be one, two, and three, with Medvedev probably still around, making their lives tough. Maybe some guys will surprise us, but this is how it feels at the moment."

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Ljubicic further analyzed Sinner's progress, acknowledging that while he hasn't achieved the same level of success as Alcaraz and Rune, he has shown promise.

The world No. 8 has secured an ATP 500 title at the 2021 DC Open and has won six ATP 250 titles. In major tournaments, he reached two finals at the Miami Open and his best Grand Slam result was reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon.

“We can argue, is it fast enough, if those jumps are (high enough). I think Alcaraz has improved a lot the last 12 months. I think (Holger) Rune made a big step forward too.”

“We being in Italy now, we would like to see this jump higher, bigger. But (his trajectory) is not disappointing, let’s put it this way. “

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According to Ljubicic, Sinner is catching up with important matches in the major tournaments, reaching advanced rounds:

“Last year, I was disappointed that he did not have enough important matches, which I felt like was important because it’s clear that he’s a type of a player, that he’s going to do five quarters and then he’s going to move to semis and then finals. He’s not going to explode out of nowhere. He’s a thinker. He’s somebody who’s going to make slow moves up there.

“So I was sorry that last year he didn’t have any big matches and any semis, any finals. Now he’s making the step that he was supposed to do last year, he’s doing it this year, so he’s coming. There’s no question, I don’t know, is it this year, is it next year, is it in two or three years’ time. But his determination is there, so he’s going to keep coming up.”