ATP Tour

Alcaraz keeps pace with Borg, Nadal, Djokovic as 2026 major season ends

Carlos Alcaraz completed a historic Grand Slam season in New York. Despite going through the longest spell away from competition of his career and having to withdraw from Roland Garros and Wimbledon, the Spaniard continued to build his legacy on the sport’s biggest stages.

At just 23 years of age, Alcaraz has already carved out a place for himself among the greats of the game and earned the respect of the most iconic names in professional tennis. The Murcia native began the 2026 season by claiming his first Australian Open crown, the final major in his collection, becoming the youngest man to complete the Career Grand Slam.

After missing more than four months due to a right wrist injury, Alcaraz then reached the quarter-finals at the US Open, where he fell to Ben Shelton in an epic five-set encounter, honourably defending his status as reigning champion after his time away from the courts. As a result, Alcaraz closes the season with an impressive 11-1 record at Grand Slam tournaments.

His performances in Melbourne and New York allow Alcaraz to bid farewell to 2026 with his place among the sport’s biggest icons in no doubt: The Spaniard currently owns the fourth-best winning percentage at the majors in the Open Era. Alcaraz boasts a record of 95-14 (0.872), according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, a mark currently bettered only by Bjorn Borg (0.892), Rafael Nadal (0.877) and Novak Djokovic (0.874).

As he enters the prime of his career, Alcaraz will hope to continue to narrow the gap from those above him on the list — during his run at Flushing Meadows, the Spaniard even briefly moved ahead of Nadal and Djokovic until his quarter-final defeat.

Highest win rate at Grand Slam tournaments (Open Era)

A glance at this list is enough to understand the calibre of the names surrounding Alcaraz, who still has much of his career ahead of him. At this point, after six full-time years on the ATP Tour, he maintains a Grand Slam winning percentage higher than those recorded by Roger Federer and Pete Sampras, two men who set the bar in the majors during the peak of their careers.

This is a list that is exclusively for truly special talents, competitors who are fully dedicated to the sport and have an innate ability to withstand the demands of best-of-five-sets tennis. With his unrivalled competitive arsenal, the sky appears to be the limit for Alcaraz. He is no longer a dazzling newcomer on the tour, nor merely a collector of precocious records: He is more than that, a permanent force in the pursuit of the sport’s biggest prizes.

Alcaraz’s future at the Grand Slams will be replete with incentives. At the next Australian Open, where he will set out as the reigning champion, the Spaniard could reach 100 major match wins. He could also become the only player to have defended a major title on three different surfaces in the history of men’s professional tennis. As if that weren’t enough, he could follow in the footsteps of Nadal and Djokovic as one of the only players in the Open Era with multiple titles at every Grand Slam tournament.

As he forges his path to the pinnacle of tennis, Alcaraz is keeping pace with the greats of the game.

Editor's Note: This story was translated from ATPTour.com/es.