Carlos Alcaraz moved to 50 match wins for the year with a straight-sets victory at the Cincinnati Open, defeating Hamad Medjedovic 6-4, 6-4 on Tuesday. The 22-year-old had been pushed to three sets two days earlier, but produced a cleaner performance against his fellow 22-year-old to register the milestone.

Alcaraz is the first player, male or female, to reach 50 wins in 2025. On the men’s tour Alexander Zverev has the next-most wins with 40, while on the women’s side Aryna Sabalenka leads with 49. Jessica Pegula can move closer to that group: she would notch her 38th victory of the year if she wins her third-round match against Magda Linette tonight.

The win in Cincinnati also continued two longer-running threads. With his victory over Medjedovic, Alcaraz remains unbeaten against players younger than him; he is now 10-0 versus younger opponents. More broadly, Alcaraz is the only man to record 50 or more match wins in each of the last four seasons. No other male player can join him in that distinction, because he was the only man to reach 50 wins in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

There is one woman who can match that four-year consistency: Iga Swiatek. Swiatek won 67 matches in 2022, 68 matches in 2023 and 64 matches in 2024, the only woman with those three totals in that span.

Alcaraz’s Cincinnati victory is therefore both a stand-alone milestone and another entry in a sustained run of high-volume winning. The 50th win underscores his place at the top of the season-long charts and highlights how few players, male or female, have combined volume and consistency across multiple seasons.

© 2025 Daniel Kopatsch

Jannik Sinner enters the North American hard-court swing carrying a 23-match unbeaten run on the surface, a sequence that stretches back nearly a year to the 2024 China Open final. His last loss on hard courts came in that final, when Carlos Alcaraz beat him 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).

The current run began at the Shanghai Masters in October, where Sinner won six matches in a row, including the final against Djokovic. He followed that with an ATP Finals title run, winning five consecutive matches and defeating Taylor Fritz in the final, which took his unbeaten tally to 11. Sinner then closed the 2024 season with three wins at the Davis Cup finals as he helped Italy defend the title, moving the streak to 14. He extended it at the Australian Open with seven wins during his title run on the hard courts of Melbourne Park to reach 21.

Sinner was then banned from February until the start of May due to his two failed doping tests in March 2024 and missed the hard-court Sunshine Double at Indian Wells and Miami. Returning to competition after the clay and grass seasons, he won at Cincinnati, beating Daniel Elahi Galan and then Gabriel Diallo 6-2, 7-6 (8-6) to bring the streak to 23.

Comparisons with the era’s best make clear the scale of the challenge ahead. Roger Federer’s longest hard-court run reached 56 matches, a sequence that began at the 2005 Rotterdam Open and ended at the 2006 Dubai Tennis Championships. Federer also recorded streaks of 36 and 26 on hard courts. Novak Djokovic’s longest hard-court run stretched from December 2010 until August 2011; that period included titles at the Australian Open, Dubai, Indian Wells, Miami and Canada before he lost the Cincinnati Open final to Andy Murray. Djokovic also has hard-court runs of 29, 26 and 23.

Rafael Nadal enjoyed an extended hard-court run from March 2012 until October 2013 with wins at the 2012 Miami Open, Indian Wells, Canada, Cincinnati and the US Open, before losing the China Open final to Djokovic. Murray’s streaks are also noted in recent seasons, with a run in early 2017 ended by Djokovic in the Doha final.

Sinner’s 23-match streak is substantial, but historically it still sits below the benchmark set by Federer and some of Djokovic’s longest runs.

Jannik Sinner’s hold at the top of the ATP Rankings has been underlined not only by Grand Slam trophies but also by an unusually consistent record against lower-ranked opposition. The 23-year-old has spent 61 straight weeks as world No 1 since first reaching the top in June 2024 and has won four Grand Slam titles in the past two seasons.

Despite a three-month doping suspension this spring, Sinner captured Grand Slam crowns in Melbourne and London in 2025 and narrowly missed at Roland Garros, where he was one point from victory in the final. His lead in the rankings stands at 3,440 points over world No 2 Carlos Alcaraz.

A defining thread runs from Sinner’s breakthrough Masters 1000 title at the 2023 Canadian Open through to his recent form. After that Toronto triumph he was upset in Cincinnati by world No 66 Dusan Lajovic. Since that loss, Sinner has collected 12 ATP Tour titles, including four Slams, the 2024 ATP Finals and three more Masters 1000 crowns, among them last year’s Cincinnati Open.

From the 2023 Canadian Open onward he has played 75 matches versus players ranked outside the top 20 and suffered only two defeats: to Lajovic in Cincinnati and to Alexander Bublik at the Halle Open in June. That 73-2 ledger is a 97.33% win rate against opponents ranked 21st or lower.

At Grand Slams the last defeat to a player outside the top 20 came against world No 79 Daniel Altmaier in the second round of the 2023 French Open. Since then Sinner is 51-5 at majors. Across all ATP events he had a 66-match streak of wins against players outside the top 20 before the loss to Bublik, and he has followed that with five wins from five against such opponents, including a very quick win over Daniel Elahi Galan in Cincinnati round two.

Sinner enters his Cincinnati Open round-three match with Gabriel Diallo on Monday night holding an overall 84.06% record (211-40) versus players outside the top 20. Comparisons with contemporaries show narrow gaps: Alcaraz sits on 86.83% across his career, while Sinner’s last 75 matches yield a 73-2 record that stands out for its near immunity to upsets.