This article originally appeared on The Grandstand.
The best current rivalry in tennis will add its first 2025 chapter when Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz battle for the Rome title on Sunday. A three-team panel makes its predictions for this Masters 1000 final.
Ricky Dimon: Heading into Rome I was very confident that Sinner would dominate both this tournament and the French Open from start to finish. The importance of being well rested while everyone else has been busy slugging it out on the clay-court swing should not be underestimated. Plus he’s the best player in the world to begin with. I’m still extremely bullish on Sinner’s chances in Paris, but there is at least some doubt about the Rome title given that the top seed looked less than 100 percent in the semis against Tommy Paul. Of course, a day off will help. If the possible hamstring injury isn’t an issue, I give Sinner the edge. He has been the best player all fortnight long and was downright unplayable during a 6-0, 6-1 quarterfinal beatdown of Casper Ruud. Alcaraz’s level has been very good during the clay season, but there are far more fluctuations in his game than Sinner’s. If it’s a tight three-setter (and that’s the only acceptable outcome when these two guys go head-to-head), you have to like the Italian to come up big in the pressure moments in front of the home crowd. Sinner in 3: 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.
Cheryl Murray: Against any other opponent, I would have picked Sinner for the title without hesitation. The Italian is clearly the best player on tour right now and he is playing in front of an enthusiastic home crowd. But when it’s Alcaraz on the other side of the net, being “the best player on tour” means less than the matchup itself. Sinner, quite frankly, has an Alcaraz problem. It’s a matchup issue to some extent. Sinner is a brilliant ball-striker–an absolute beast from the baseline. But Alcaraz is fast enough to chase down what other players can’t, plus he plays a kind of flashy tennis that seems to throw Sinner off his stride a bit. Make no mistake, most of their matches are won or lost by just a handful of points–points that lately have gone to Alcaraz. I’m still inclined to give Sinner the edge despite the fact that he lost his last three against the Spaniard. Alcaraz has been a little off this year and while he has played better on the clay-court swing, he hasn’t faced anyone of Sinner’s caliber. Sinner in 3: 7-6(4), 5-7, 7-5.
Pete Ziebron: Here we are in mid-May and Jannik Sinner is undefeated in 2025…. Well…we know the story. That being said, the Italian won the Australian Open to begin the year and in this, his first tournament back after suspension, marched right into the Rome Masters final. Things appeared to be going too well for Sinner after he crushed Ruud in the quarterfinals with the loss of just one game, winning 55 of the 77 points in the match. Paul quickly got his attention in his next round, though, running away with the first set 6-1 before Sinner corrected course and dropped just three games the rest of the way to reach the final. Alcaraz had serious concerns in his fourth-rounder against 23rd seed Karen Khachanov, as he had to go the distance to prevail 7-5 and won only three more points over the course of the match. The rest of his tournament has been business as usual aside from a second-set tiebreaker against Lorenzo Musetti in their semifinal. Ironically, they also met in the Monte Carlo Masters final–with Alcaraz winning in three sets for his second title this year. Alcaraz enjoys a 6-4 H2H in this sizzling series with Sinner and they have played three times in each of the last three seasons, including a victory for the Spaniard in last year’s Roland Garros semis. Alcaraz is the better clay-court player and has significantly more match play thus far in 2025. Alcaraz in 3: 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.