"Is he stronger than those players today?" - Jo-Wilfried Tsonga not willing to compare Carlos Alcaraz to the Big Three

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga believes that Carlos Alcaraz is not as talented as the Big Three, going against a statement John McEnroe said earlier this year.

Rafael Nadal, Roger Ferderer and Novak Djokovic were the dominant forces of their era, picking up 66 Grand Slams between each other while regularly going toe-to-toe on the court. While Nadal and Federer have both since retired, Djokovic is still ploughing on, attempting to add even more titles and records to his already decorated career.

However, it has become a lot tougher with the recent dominance of Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. The pair have shared the prior eight Grand Slam titles between them while having faced off in the previous three. It was their first Grand Slam final meeting at Roland Garros where McEnroe said: “The most talented kid I have ever seen on a tennis court,” rating them higher than the Big Three or any other tennis great.

This could have been a thing in the moment with Alcaraz just winning one of the greatest tennis matches ever played, coming back from two sets down whilst surviving championship points to defeat his arch-rival in a thrilling contest.

The Frenchman has had loads of experience playing against the Big Three. Once a very talented tennis player, Tsonga reached the Australian Open final while peaking at number five in the world. When reacting to the McEnroe statement, he stated that the era he played in was a lot harder than the current one that Alcaraz and Sinner are experiencing, making their dominance not as impressive. Tsonga wanted to see Alcaraz win a Grand Slam by beating players at the top of their game in each round, players who are nearer to his level.

“Honestly, it’s true that he’s developing more. He’s a really complete player. He is really complete,” Tsonga said on the Univers Tennis podcast. "Afterwards, is he stronger than those players today? Mentally, physically, well we don’t really know. What I would have liked to see is Alcaraz win Roland Garros, but by beating [Juan Martin] Del Potro in the third round, [Andy] Murray in the fourth round, Djokovic in the quarter-finals, Federer in the semi-finals and Nadal in the final. That’s what I would have liked to see in real life, because today he dominates head and shoulders.”

It is hard to put any other tennis player in the same bracket as Alcaraz or Sinner at the moment. The closest seems to be Djokovic, but even he has not beaten either of them since the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, where he got the better of Carlos Alcaraz. The next three majors he would come unstuck against them, leading to four major semi-finals on the bounce.

While there are questions about Djokovic's age, other former Grand Slam contenders are not putting in the same performances they once produced. The likes of Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas have not reached the same level that they once were at, with new stars such as Ben Shelton, Jack Draper and Holger Rune not yet at the level to stay with them.

It is yet to see if any of the current crop of players will raise their game and take the fight to the big two, but for now it seems that Alcaraz and Sinner are just going to keep improving each other and continue to accelerate away from the chasing pack.