Former ATP No. 1 says only comp for Jannik Sinner is one of the Big 3

Jannik Sinner has suffered only one loss so far this year and that was to Carlos Alcaraz in the semifinals at Indian Wells after Sinner had won the first set. Alcaraz adjusted and Sinner failed to do so and lost. What made the match so strange wasn't that the Italian lost, but that he did not apply his normally high tennis IQ to cause Alcaraz to have to change once again.

Many might have hoped that Alcaraz and Sinner would meet again in the final of the Miami Open, but Alcaraz was bounced out in the quarterfinals. Sinner went on to win the event but it was in how he won that was most impressive. In the semifinal and final combined, his opponents won a combined seven games from him.

In the semifinal, the Italian, and new ATP No. 2, only allowed Daniil Medvedev to win three games. This matched the fewest games the Russian had ever won during a match in his professional career. Medvedev was lost from the beginning of the match as well. Instead of playing 18 feet deep from the baseline in an attempt to place his return better, he played tighter to the line in hopes of doing anything differently against Sinner to make the outcome something other than the previous four times the two had played.

Jannik Sinner compared to Rafael Nadal by Andy Roddick

The head-to-head with Medvedev shows just how much Sinner has evolved. The two have played 11 times now, but the Russian won the first six matches. Sinner has won the last five and each match seems more one-sided than the prior one.

But exactly how well did Jannik Sinner finish the Miami Open? According to former ATP No. 1 Andy Roddick on his Served with Andy Roddick podcast, there is only one comparable that he can think of and that player is one of the Big 3. Roddick also gave specifics on why he said what he did.

Roddick compared Sinner to 22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal and Nadal's run on clay at the 2010 Monte Carlo Masters 1000. During that event, Nadal defeated David Ferrer 6-1 6-2 in the semifinal and then beat Fernando Verdasco 6-0 6-1. Sinner's victory over Medvedev on a hard court, a surface in which Medvedev normally plays at an extremely high level, might be more impressive than what Nadal did against either Ferrer or Verdasco, however.

Roddick said on his podcast, "I’m gonna to make a point for you on how dominant this performance was by Jannik Sinner...But the most dominant person when you get on a specific surface at a specific time is Rafa on clay. That’s as indisputable as the GOAT conversation, maybe even more so...To draw a comp to what Sinner just did in Miami, you have to go to prime Nadal on clay. That is what you are comparing this dominance to."

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