Roger Federer knows tennis. After all, he spent the second-most weeks ranked atop the ATP tour, and he is a 20-time Grand Slam winner. He is also a keen observer of the current state of tennis and one of the best ambassadors the sport has.
He is also seemingly a very nice person whose words should be measured by how a person interprets them, versus what he meant. Almost certainly, Federer has no malice in his observations and means no harm against almost any player.
Ahead of the Australian Open, the all-time great was asked about the rivalry between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, the two players who currently rule men's tennis and who might keep it that way for many more years. Alcaraz is only 22 years old, and Sinner is just 24.
Roger Federer gets unfair backlash for recent Jannik Sinner comments
Federer might see himself as more of the kind of player Alcaraz is, and that would be fair. Sinner is more akin to Rafael Nadal, one of Federer's greatest rivals. The Swiss great watched Sinner almost lose to Grigor Dimitrov at Wimbledon in 2025 before Dimitrov was injured and had to withdraw. While watching the match, Federer thought about how he would defeat the Italian if he were still playing.
This is important to know because it helped form Federer's answer when asked about the Alcaraz-Sinner rivalry by the media ahead of the Australian Open. The social media backlash by Sinner fans has been great, but quite illogical.
Federer said, "At Wimbledon, when Grigor was playing against Jannik, and I was sitting there, that made it easy to think how it could’ve been because Grigor plays very similar to how I played. I think it was one of the first times I thought how would it have been to play Jannik. I put myself more in Carlos’s mindset and skin when I watch him. Now with Sinner at one time, I thought, ‘Okay, now I understand how I would probably play against Jannik.’"
If anything, what Federer indicated was his appreciation for the Italian. The Swiss great wasn't saying he could pick up a racket now and beat Sinner or that Alcaraz was the better player. Federer appeared to imply that he wasn't sure how anyone would beat Sinner, but at least watching the Dimitrov match gave Federer an idea of how it would happen.
To be sure, Roger Federer is likely to be a fan of Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz and what the rivalry is doing for tennis. He isn't going to say a malicious word about either one out of hand.