Follow live coverage of the French Open men’s final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz today ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — Back when Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were dominating men’s tennis, a pattern developed.
Something similar is happening in men’s tennis again, and the protagonists are Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.
After Sunday’s French Open final, that recent tally will either be 3-3, or 4-2 in Sinner’s favour.
“My favorite thing is it gives me the feedback of how I can be better, a better player,” Alcaraz said.
“From my point of view, he’s a player who makes me a better player,” Sinner said in his news conference.
Watch live coverage of Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz’s match in today’s French Open men’s final.
ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — There was a trend when Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer were ruling men’s singles. The Big Three improved as they played one another more. They played, they got better, and they played again over the course of 150 matches, all at a level that was unattainable by other men’s tennis players.
A positive cycle for them, a downward spiral for everyone else.
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner are the main players in a similar situation that is occurring in men’s tennis once more. When you put them on the same court, their level, which is already too high for everyone else, soars. Sinner and Alcaraz have closed off an era of Grand Slam tennis that was supposed to be open, as two of the Big Three have retired and Djokovic has acknowledged that his final matches are imminent.
Together, they have won the last five Grand Slams. Alcaraz took two, while Sinner took three. That most recent score will be either 3-3 or 4-2 in Sinner’s favor following Sunday’s French Open final.
Although these two have never faced each other in a major final before, it looks like they will soon do so. To defeat a resurgent Djokovic in the semifinals on Friday, Sinner needed to be at his best as a computer game character, but the men’s draw has felt like a major prelude to the meeting of a new Big Two. It brought back memories of the 2008 Wimbledon final, in which Federer and Nadal lost just one set each on their way to a match that will go down in tennis history.
This Grand Slam final, which neither player can lose, makes the match seem paradoxical in this context. There will be a winner and a runner-up at the end, but overall, this is just one more piece of evidence showing that Sinner and Alcaraz push each other during five sets to levels that are much higher than their rivals can reach.
As with the Big Three, they have already consolidated into a pack; even if a candidate advances past one, it is highly unlikely that they will advance past both. Daniil Medvedev defeated Sinner in five sets at Wimbledon last year, but his quarterfinal victory only made him more receptive to Alcaraz a few days later. Beat Alcaraz at the Australian Open in January took so much out of Djokovic that he was unable to complete his semifinal before a potential final matchup with Sinner.
Despite the mutually beneficial nature of this tennis rivalry, it seems that Sinner is more necessary for Alcaraz than the other way around. Even if Sinner acknowledged that Alcaraz made him more “unpredictable” after defeating Djokovic, he seems so focused on winning the next point that it seems to be enough motivation for him.
Because Alcaraz is wired a little differently, he can easily lose focus but also regain it when necessary because he is so certain that he can control matches.
Sometimes, we only consider ourselves. Sometimes we focus on how I lost the set in the match rather than how he actually won. He said, “So that’s the difference,” following his semifinal defeat of Lorenzo Musetti.
When playing against Sinner, whom he actively enjoys, his concentration does not waver. Alcaraz enjoys being around his only true equal, much like when he meets the only other person who enjoys the same music or a fellow fan of obscure movies.
“It provides me with feedback on how I can improve as a player, which is my favorite thing,” Alcaraz remarked. “That’s significant and lovely, and it provides you with a lot of statistics and feedback regardless of my outcome. “.”.
Sinner is the only person who is capable of doing what Alcaraz does, and their matches give him life. He has won their last four encounters, which is a degree of reliability that can be difficult to find elsewhere. Alcaraz appeared a little disoriented while Sinner was serving a three-month anti-doping ban. In a world without Sinners, he bombed out of a few tournaments, losing to David Goffin in Miami and Jiří Lehečka in Doha. His footing didn’t come until he stepped onto the clay in Monte Carlo.
It would not be the first time that Alcaraz needs a competitor to perform at their peak. In the 1980s, John McEnroe was also devastated by the retirement of his fiercest opponent, Björn Borg. Federer acknowledged that he wasn’t particularly looking for a competitor when Nadal first appeared, but he eventually realized how the Spaniard helped him reach even higher levels.
In a recent interview, Martina Navratilova reflected in part on her legendary 80-match rivalry with Chris Evert when she stated, “They elevate you because you have to play better.”.
“To beat the other one, you must be nearly at your best. since they won’t give it to you. Because you can only hit great shots if the other player forces you to hit great shots, you can only play great tennis if they force you to play great. “.”.
Even though Sinner and Alcaraz are capable of hitting amazing shots against anyone, it is against one another that they excel, elevating one another to a point where their combined skill is more than sufficient to defeat the best players on the tour. Instead of Musetti, the No. Alcaraz, the eighth seed and this year’s second most reliable clay-court player, rambled through the opening two sets but won the match handily. After winning one game in the last two sets of their Monte Carlo Masters final two months prior, when the Italian also deteriorated physically, Musetti was compelled to retire in the fourth set.
“I knew even before I stepped on the court that I had to play probably the best match of my career so far (to win),” Musetti remarked of Friday’s match.
Sinner finds that his comfort against everyone else is even more intense. Since the beginning of the year, he has dropped eight games, four to Alcaraz and four to all other teams.
Sinner’s longest match at this year’s French Open had lasted two hours and fifteen minutes prior to his semifinal match against Djokovic on Friday. Andrey Rublev and Alexander Bublik needed 27 minutes to defeat Lehečka, whereas it took him 55 minutes to win a match. All of these players are in the top 25 now or recently.
But, aside from Djokovic, he seems to have it easier than Alcaraz. Last month, Casper Ruud, a three-time major finalist, fell to Sinner 6-0, 6-1 at the Italian Open. “It was like playing a wall that shoots hundred-mile-an-hour balls at you all the time,” Ruud said in a press conference after winning a game, which took 47 minutes. “.”.
Those balls traveling at a hundred miles per hour return with interest when facing Alcaraz. After making it to the final on Sunday, Sinner echoed former top women’s players Kim Clijsters and Daniela Hantuchova, who discussed this week the importance of honing certain aspects of their game to deal with particular opponents.
“In my opinion, he is a player who helps me become a better player,” Sinner stated during his press conference. He tests me to the breaking point. When I play against him again, we try to figure out where we need to get better. “”.
Playing against each other is the most beneficial thing for Sinner and Alcaraz. The rest of the ATP Tour will therefore be the true losers, even though only one man can win on Sunday.
Dan Isitene/Getty Images is the top image.
