The two best tennis players in the world today, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, confirmed this Friday (9) that they are willing to join forces to play doubles together “at least once”.
Asked about the possibility of playing together before an exhibition match in South Korea, on Saturday (10), as a warm-up for the Australian Open, the winners of the last eight Grand Slams did not rule out the possibility of this happening in the future.
“I think it would be fun to share the court in a different way, playing on the same side, for once,” said Sinner, who will try to win her third straight Australian Open title in late January.
“Of course, the schedule is busy and we are so focused on the singles matches that it is very difficult” to find time to play a doubles match like this, he added.
However, the current world number 2 warned: “When you go far in a singles tournament and then have to play doubles, you can’t recover properly.”
“But if it’s just for one tournament, that would be fantastic. We’ll talk about it maybe this year, if we feel ready at some point, or next year,” Sinner insisted.
Alcaraz, in turn, admitted that the idea of playing alongside his great rival has crossed his mind “once or twice”.
“It would be fun to make that happen at least once,” added Alcaraz, who has already planned his strategy: he would play on the forehand and Sinner on the backhand.
For the world No. 1, who like Sinner will not play any warm-up tournaments before the Australian Open from January 18 to February 1, Saturday’s showing is “an excellent way to prepare” for the only Grand Slam tournament still missing from his trophy collection.
“Coming here for two or three days, continuing to prepare for next season, was a great idea,” said Alcaraz, who in December announced his split from Juan Carlos Ferrero, the coach who guided him to the elite level.
