Jim Courier suggests two ATP players who could challenge Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner next year

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Jim Courier has picked two ATP players who he believes could disrupt Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner next year.

Alcaraz and Sinner have won the last eight major titles between each other, dominating the ATP Tour once again in 2025.

The top two players are the favourites at the ATP Finals as well, where Alcaraz and Sinner will be battling for the world number one ranking.

There have been suggestions about who could challenge Alcaraz and Sinner in 2026, and Jim Courier has added two more names into the mix.

Jim Courier names two potential challengers to Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in 2026

Very few players have beaten Sinner and Alcaraz in the past couple of years, but Mark Petchey and former world number one Courier spoke about how quickly tennis can change in the off-season.

When suggesting who he thinks could contend with the top two players, Courier mentioned both Jack Draper, who beat Alcaraz at Indian Wells, and Ben Shelton.

“They have, they’ve broken free. They’ve changed the game in terms of the way that they’ve played,” Petchey said about Alcaraz and Sinner.

“Jim talked about it again on commentary that they’ve been willing to mid-season make some big significant changes technically, which has allowed them to strategize better. And the beautiful thing about this sport is that the off-season is just around the corner, and everyone’s got a chance to go and chase them.”

Courier added, “And who’s going to get better is Jack Draper, who played so well to win Indian Wells and has had bad injury problems, he’s been sitting out for much of the second half of the season. Is he going to be able to come out and be a force to be reckoned with next year? Maybe, we’ll see.

“Is Shelton, the guy who won the best of the rest tournament in Canada, is he going to be the one to step through? We don’t know, we might not. This might be a duopoly for a while, we might get a couple other players in the mix, we are going to stand by and find out and love watching every minute of it.”

Draper recently spoke about Alcaraz and Sinner’s impact, as he looks to fully recover from his injury in time to play the 2026 season.

The ‘insane’ statistic that shows just how dominant Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have been

In the Tennis Channel coverage, presenter Steve Weismann pointed out an incredible statistic that shows just how much ahead of the rest Alcaraz and Sinner are.

“Just need to reiterate one more time, Sascha [Alexander] Zverev is further from Jannik Sinner than (the world number) 1000 is to Zverev,” Weismann said. “That’s one of the most insane stats.

Dutch player Elgin Khoeblal is currently the world number 1000 with just 15 ranking points, but is still closer to world number three Alexander Zverev than he is to world number two Sinner in terms of ranking points.

That lead may only grow at the ATP Finals, where Sinner beat Felix Auger-Aliassime in his first round-robin match.

Sinner will now play Zverev in his second round-robin match, having won his last four meetings against the German.