Is Felix Auger-Aliassime the man to end Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s Grand Slam grip?

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have dominated the Grand Slam scene the past two years so it is hard to go against them when it comes to guessing the 2026 major winners, but tennis pundit Mark Petchey named Felix Auger-Aliassime as the man who could break their stranglehold.

The top two players on the ATP Tour have shared the last eight major trophies with Sinner winning two Australian Open titles, one US Open trophy and a Wimbledon title while Alcaraz was twice the last man standing at Roland Garros and once each at Wimbledon and the US Open.

Before that, Novak Djokovic swept all before him at the Grand Slams and, in fact, you have to go back to the 2022 season for the last time a player not named Alcaraz, Sinner or Djokovic won one of tennis’ big events.

But even then a certain Rafael Nadal won back-to-back titles at the Australian Open and French Open while Daniil Medvedev won the 2021 US Open.

So who is most likely to break the Alcaraz and Sinner grip on the majors?

When the Tennis Channel put the question to former player Petchey – who has coached the likes of Andy Murray and Emma Raducanu – he replied: “I’m going to go with Felix Auger-Aliassime, I love the way that he has played.

“I know that he has played with a roof over his head for the last couple of months so that may be just clouding my judgment a little bit, but all four majors have got roofs these days and he may well get the luxury of playing under the roof.

“But I like the way he has matured in the last three, four months, I like the way he played at the US Open and he has got big weapons. I look at Jannik and Carlos, and if you don’t come with firepower they are going to get you every single time.”

Auger-Aliassime, whose previous high was No 6, had found himself on the brink of exiting the top 30 after Wimbledon, but finished the year at No 5 in the ATP Rankings.

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He had an incredible second half of the year that saw him reach the semi-finals of the US Open, the quarter-finals of the Cincinnati Open, Shanghai Masters and Swiss Indoors, the final of the Paris Masters and the semi-final of the ATP Finals.

But of the seven matches he has lost since the beginning of August, four have been against Sinner and one against Alcaraz.

Sinner now leads his head-to-head with the Canadian 4-2 while Alcaraz is 5-3 up.

And any player who wants to win a Grand Slam will most likely have to get past the top two during the latter stages of a tournament.