Experts predict who will finish as 2025 ATP year-end No 1 and it’s not Jannik Sinner

Shahida Jacobs
L-R: Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic, and Carlos Alcaraz.
Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic, and Carlos Alcaraz.

Jannik Sinner finished the 2024 season as the year-end No 1 and he has pretty much started the new campaign where he left off, but he won’t end this year at the top of the ATP Rankings, according to a panel of tennis experts.

The Italian produced one of the most dominant seasons in tennis history last year as he won eight titles – including the Australian Open, US Open and ATP Finals – and finished the campaign with a 73-6 win-loss record.

The 23-year-old started the 2025 season with 11,830 ranking points – a massive 3,915-point advantage over second-placed Alexander Zverev with Carlos Alcaraz another 905 points behind in third place.

Having won so many titles last year, Sinner of course has a lot of points to defend this campaign but he is off to a good start as he retained his Australian Open crown.

With Zverev finishing runner-up at the hard-court major, the gap between the top two was reduced to 3,695 while Alcaraz is still well adrift as he is 4,820 points behind Sinner.

Alcaraz himself has two Grand Slams titles to defend in 2025 as he won the French Open and Wimbledon in 2024 while Sinner also still has to defend 2,000 points at the US Open and 1,500 at the ATP Finals.

Despite the Italian’s success over the past 12 months, a Sky Sports Tennis panel believe Alcaraz will finish ahead of Sinner in the rankings this year.

Six of the seven pundits went with the Spaniard to finish at No 1 with some even suggesting Sinner will finish at No 3 with Zverev at No 2.

Gigi Salmon, Tim Henman, Laura Robson, Jonathan Overend, Naomi Broady and Naomi Cavaday all went with

“Alcaraz has two Grand Slams to defend but he has tailed off at the back end of last year due to overplaying and illness, but he is really good at working out problems and learning from what didn’t go right,” Salmon told Sky Sports Tennis.

Cavaday said of her pick: “Alcaraz seemed a little unsettled through the 2024 season but still managed to win two Grand Slams and beat Sinner in all three meetings. A refreshed Alcaraz could see him dominate in 2025 and stretch away at the top of the rankings.”

Alcaraz while Raz Mirza was the only person to pick Sinner.

ATP Features

The 5 men born in the 2000s with the most ATP Tour titles: Sinner & Alcaraz in front

The 7 men with the highest win percentage as the world No 1: Jannik Sinner 94%, Novak Djokovic 7th

Salmon and Overend also believe Zverev will finish ahead of Sinner in the rankings while there was also not much love for Djokovic with two suggesting he won’t finish in the top eight.

The Sky Sports Tennis Picks:
Gigi Salmon

1. Alcaraz
2. Zverev
3. Sinner
4. Medvedev
5. Fritz
6. Ruud
7. Fils
8. Mpetshi Perricard

Tim Henman

1. Alcaraz
2. Sinner
3. Zverev
4. Medvedev
5. Fritz
6. Rublev
7. Rune
8. Ruud

Laura Robson

1. Alcaraz
2. Sinner
3. Zverev
4. Djokovic
5. Fritz
6. Ruud
7. Medvedev
8. Dimitrov

Jonathan Overend

1. Alcaraz
2. Zverev
3. Sinner
4. Fritz
5. Djokovic
6. Medvedev
7. Rublev
8. Fils

Naomi Broady

1. Alcaraz
2. Sinner
3. Djokovic
4. Zverev
5. Medvedev
6. Rublev
7. Fritz
8. De Minaur

Naomi Cavaday

1. Alcaraz
2. Sinner
3. Zverev
4. Djokovic
5. Fritz
6. Medvedev
7. Ruud
8. Draper

Raz Mirza

1. Sinner
2. Alcaraz
3. Zverev
4. Fritz
5. Ruud
6. Medvedev
7. Djokovic
8. De Minaur

Mirza believes Sinner is “currently just too strong” for those chasing him in the rankings.

“His performances at the US Open were head and shoulders above everyone else and he cemented his spot at the top of the tree with a run of unerring displays at the ATP Finals in Turin,” he said.

“Alcaraz will no doubt run him close, but the Italian’s overall game is currently just too strong for the rest of the chasing pack.”