Jannik Sinner may hold the world number one ranking ahead of Wimbledon, but two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz is the man to beat at SW19.

Alcaraz's 2025 season is swiftly becoming a spectacular one.

The Spaniard has already won five trophies, having reached six ATP Tour-level finals, including reaching the showpiece match at the last five tournaments he has contested.

Since the start of the European clay-court swing at the Monte-Carlo Masters, only Holger Rune has beaten Alcaraz, who is 42-5 for the season and 27-1 since the start of April.

No player on the ATP Tour can match Alcaraz's tally of match wins this season, and he is on an 18-match winning streak.

Alcaraz skipped the Madrid Open due to injury but has proved unbeatable since then, with the highlight being his extraordinary comeback against Sinner in the French Open final, as he saved three championship points en route to an epic five-set triumph.

The 22-year-old is a two-time reigning champion at Roland-Garros, and he is now aiming for a hat-trick of titles on the grass at the All England Club.

Warming up for the big moments #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/vAIV3WwK5b

— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) June 27, 2025

Alcaraz dealt with the transition from clay to grass by claiming the title at Queen's, the second time he has won that trophy.

He holds a 90% win record at Wimbledon, having won 18 of his 20 matches at the All England Club. Only two other men hold a win ratio of 90% or higher at the event - Bjorn Borg (92.7%) and Pete Sampras (90%).

And only Rod Laver (19) registered more wins from his first 20 men's singles matches at Wimbledon than Alcaraz in the Open Era.

At 21 years and 70 days old at the time of his triumph over Novak Djokovic in last year's final, Alcaraz became the youngest player in the Open Era to win both Roland-Garros and Wimbledon in the same year.

He also became the third-youngest player to win the Championships in back-to-back editions, older than only Boris Becker (18 years and 277 days, 1985-86) and Borg (21 years and 26 days, 1976-77).

It is safe to say, then, that Alcaraz goes into the season's third major as the favourite, but who are the other contenders?

Jannik Sinner

All three of Sinner's grand slam titles so far have come on hard courts, though he looked set to claim his first major trophy on a different surface when he brought up three championship points against Alcaraz in Paris.

Yet Alcaraz had other ideas, as he claimed a second win over Sinner in the space of two weeks, having also downed the world number one in the Italian Open in May.

Indeed, Alcaraz appears to be Sinner's kryptonite.

Since the start of the 2024 season, Sinner has an extraordinary record of 92-4 against players other than Alcaraz on the ATP Tour. Yet in that same timeframe, he has a 0-5 record against the world number two.

Dating back to last year's Cincinnati Open, Sinner has won 48 of his last 52 Tour-level matches, with three of his four defeats coming against Alcaraz. The other loss was his defeat to Alexander Bublik at the Halle Open last week.

Sinner is still the world's best player by ranking, if not by form, albeit reaching two finals in three tournaments since his return from a three-month suspension can hardly be scoffed at.

The 23-year-old is aiming to become the second-youngest man to reach the final of the Australian Open, Roland-Garros and Wimbledon in a single season in the Open Era, with only Jim Courier (in 1993) doing so at a younger age.

Sinner is already the youngest player to reach three straight men's singles finals at majors since Pete Sampras did so at the age of 22 years and 158 days, between Wimbledon in 1993 and the following year's Australian Open.

The Italian has the highest ratio of first-serve points won at the majors in 2025 (79.2%), with only Stan Wawrinka (66.3%) having a higher percentage of second-serve points won than Sinner (62.0%) in such tournaments.

Sinner, whose best run at Wimbledon was a semi-final exit at the hands of Djokovic in 2023, is the first player to reach at least eight consecutive ATP-level event finals since Djokovic in 2015 – he is also the youngest to achieve the feat since Ivan Lendl in 1982. 

It would still be a shock to see Sinner fall short of a deep run, but the big question is whether he can get the better of Alcaraz if they meet again.

Feels good to be back pic.twitter.com/uoKrv3ZWRw

— Jannik Sinner (@janniksin) June 25, 2025

Novak Djokovic

For all the hype around Alcaraz and Sinner, Djokovic can't be discounted.

He pushed Sinner hard in the semi-finals at Roland-Garros, despite going down in three sets, and the 38-year-old still has the lure of winning a record-breaking 25th grand slam title.

Djokovic has not played since the French Open and has been seeded fifth, falling in Jack Draper's quarter of the draw. Sinner is a potential semi-final opponent once more.

But Djokovic's efforts in Paris showed he is still capable of testing the very best of the new era. He has reached two grand slam semi-finals this season, so it is not as though he is fading away entirely, even if injuries and fatigue are now a bigger hurdle for him than they previously were.

Djokovic has won Wimbledon seven times. Only Roger Federer (eight) has won the event on more occasions in the Open Era.

Federer (105) is also the only man to win more Wimbledon singles matches in the Open Era than Djokovic, who is on 97.

Should he reach the fourth round, then Djokovic will bring up his 100th win at the All England Club, making Wimbledon the second grand slam where he has a century of match victories.

And if he were to then progress to the semi-finals, Wimbledon would overtake Roland-Garros (101) as the major at which Djokovic has won the most matches.

Only two men during the Open Era have reached the final on 10 or more occasions at Wimbledon, and they are Djokovic (10) and Federer (12).

Djokovic will become just the fourth player in the Open Era to appear in 20 men's singles main draws at Wimbledon, after Federer (22), Jimmy Connors (21) and Feliciano Lopez (20).

A long-awaited 100th ATP Tour-level title arrived for Djokovic on the eve of the French Open, though he still needs three more trophies to match Federer (103), while the Serbian is nine behind Connors' record of 109.

Jack Draper

Third seed Alexander Zverev, who is just two wins away from bringing up his 500th career match victory on the ATP Tour, is having a hugely frustrating year, but for world number four Draper, it has been a breakthrough season.

The 23-year-old won his first ATP Masters 1000 title by beating Holger Rune in the final of the Indian Wells Open, becoming just the third British man to win that tournament since 1976, and he also reached the showpiece match at the Madrid Open, losing to clay-court specialist Casper Ruud.

Draper, who is just the fourth player born since the turn of the century to win a Masters 1000 trophy, will have the British fans firmly on side at Wimbledon, though his preparations have been hampered somewhat by a recent bout of illness, from which he was suffering as he lost to Jiri Lehecka in the Queen's semi-finals.

But with home backing, Draper will be gunning to fill Andy Murray's shoes and clinch the famous old trophy.

Draper has an 18-8 record on grass, while his most wins on grass during a single season was eight in 2024, when he won the title at Stuttgart.

However, he has never made it beyond the second round at Wimbledon, where he has a 2-3 record.

Two-time champion Murray (in 2012, 2013 and 2016) is the only British player to reach the final of Wimbledon in the Open Era, so the odds are not in Draper's favour.