Carlos Alcaraz is more popular than Jannik Sinner according to former doubles Grand Slam champion Patrick McEnroe.
Sinner beat Alcaraz in the final of the Monte Carlo Masters, which was their first match of the 2026 season so far.
This result meant that Sinner dethroned Alcaraz as world number one, ending the Spaniard’s 22-week stint at the top of the ATP rankings.
While Sinner is the best player in men’s tennis right now according to the rankings, McEnroe has explained why he thinks Alcaraz is more popular.
Patrick McEnroe calls Carlos Alcaraz ‘a showman, a Broadway star and an incredible athlete all rolled into one’
When asked about Alcaraz and Sinner on the Spout Podcast, McEnroe was full of praise for both players.
However, McEnroe was particularly big on Alcaraz, who he claimed is like a combination of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
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The former French Open doubles champion also compared Alcaraz to a Broadway star, highlighting his on-court personality as the reason why he is more popular than the more ‘reserved’ Sinner, who he claimed was similar to Bjorn Borg.
“Well Alcaraz you’ve got to put at the top of the list, now he’s got considerably more majors than Sinner,” said McEnroe. “But the way he plays, he plays with such joy, he plays with an incredible variety of shots. You know, he hits shots that we didn’t even think were possible and he does them with regularity.
“I mean Federer obviously had the beauty and the slice and could come to the net, this guy has got the explosiveness of Nadal, the speed of Djokovic and the shot making ability of Federer, all rolled into one.
“I do this at our tennis academy, before I left for Australia I said who’s going to win it and some of the kids say Sinner, but most of them say they love Alcaraz, because of his personality. You know, you asked me earlier about my brother [John McEnroe], do we need more personality? This guy loves to be on the tennis court, he loves to play the game.
“During the final of the Australian Open that just happened, he lost the first set to Djokovic and my brother and I, and Chris Fowler, are sat in the commentary booth and we look up, we call it the bunker, and the players can see us when they go to get the towel. Every match, Alcaraz would look up at my brother and laugh, and now he was losing the final and he wasn’t playing that well. He kind of looked over at us and he’s like ‘Yep’.
“The point I’m making is that even when he was down in one of the biggest matches of his career, you know the final of a major, he still has the wherewithal to communicate with us, the crowd and the people there. He’s like a showman, a Broadway star and an incredible athlete all rolled into one…It’s fun, he’s bringing a lot of kids into the game which is important.
“Sinner’s a great player, but he’s a little more mechanical in the way he plays. His personality is different, you know Bjorn Borg was quiet, when he used to play against my brother he would be very stoic. You have to be who you are.
“I find that tennis players, their game often models in a way their personality. Are they outgoing, do they go for their shots, do they come to the net? Sinner’s a little bit more of a reserved guy off the court, but he couldn’t be nicer and he couldn’t be classier.
“He’s trying to develop his game so he can continue to compete with Alcaraz tournament in and tournament out. But this guy is awesome too, he has won four majors already. He has taken the ball-striking ability off the ground to another level, he just doesn’t quite have as much variety of shot as Alcaraz. But boy, he hits the ball as well off the ground strokes as I have ever seen!”
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Who has more social media followers out of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner?
McEnroe’s point about Alcaraz being more popular than Sinner is actually supported by their social media followers.
Alcaraz has over three million followers on Instagram than Sinner, and he also has more people following him on X, Facebook and Tik Tok.
This gives Alcaraz an overall social media follower lead over Sinner of 6,365,400 on the main social media platforms.
| Social media followers | Carlos Alcaraz | Jannik Sinner |
| 8.5million | 5.2million | |
| X (Formerly known as Twitter) | 1.9million | 429,300 |
| 498,000 | 135,000 | |
| TikTok | 1.3million | 68,300 |
| Total | 12,198,000 | 5,832,600 |
Ultimately, this does not actually matter and it does not appear to be bothering Sinner, who is currently on a 17-match winning streak.
Both players will be targeting the French Open, but Alcaraz has been handed a setback after suffering a wrist injury that forced him to withdraw from the Barcelona Open.
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