Who deserves to be crowned the 2026 Ballon d’Or winner of tennis between Alexander Zverev, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz?

Legendary coach Patrick Mouratoglou has gone for a surprise pick as he selected the player who “made history in the Grand Slams this year” as his ATP star of the 2026 tennis season.

The three shared the four Grand Slams this year with Alcaraz lifting the Australian Open trophy, Zverev won the French Open and US Open, and Sinner successfully defending his Wimbledon crown.

Of the three, Sinner won the most tournaments in 2026 as he also lifted five ATP Masters 1000 trophies and the Italian has also spent most of the year at No 1 as he currently sits on 29 weeks.

Alcaraz won ATP 500 titles in Qatar and Japan to go with his major and spent the first 15 weeks of the year at No 1 in the ATP Rankings before he was overtaken by Sinner in mid-April.

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Zverev’s only trophies this year have been at Roland Garros and Flushing Meadows, but he is set to finish as the year-end No 1 as he will replace Sinner in the coming weeks as the Italian was forced to end his season early due to injury.

Despite Zverev winning two majors and Sinner Wimbledon and five ATP Masters events – with the latter a record as he is the first man to win the first five ATP 1000 tournaments of the year consecutively – Mouratoglou went with Alcaraz.

“Zverev won the most Slams this year and will end up the season as No 1 in the world, but he is not my Ballon d’Or of tennis,” he said in an Instagram post.

“Zverev, Alcaraz and Sinner, all three played unbelievable tennis this year. Of course, Zverev is the one who won the most, but only one player made history in the Grand Slams this year and it’s Carlos Alcaraz.

“He won a Career Grand Slam and he’s the youngest ever to do so. On top of that, he beat Zverev this year, the only time they played each other in a Grand Slam. It was an epic match, Zverev served for the match, but Carlos ended up winning.

“My Ballon d’Or of tennis is Carlos Alcaraz.”

Alcaraz was 22 years and 272 days old when he completed the Career Grand Slam at the Australian Open, beating the all-time record of Don Budge (22 years and 363 days) and the Open Era feat of Rafael Nadal (24 years and 101 days).