The two combatants who are present champions and future all-time greats are going to be all the rage in men’s tennis that has been lamenting the departure of two of three legends in Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and the diminishing returns for the third, Novak Djokovic
It was only the first major final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner and yet it set the tennis world alight with stunning brilliance in record duration to provide a result in a grand finale at the Roland Garros in favour of the younger Alcaraz, who won his fifth grand slam title at the age of 22, the same as compatriot and tennis legend Rafael Nadal.
The two combatants who are present champions and future all-time greats are going to be all the rage in men’s tennis that has been lamenting the departure of two of three legends in Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and the diminishing returns for the third, Novak Djokovic.
The final between the two generational talents, both born in the new millennium, was an epic for the ages that defied known laws of tennis in terms of court coverage, recovery shots, physical endurance and sheer intensity of exchanges at an incredible pace in a match in which fortunes swung halfway as Alcaraz staved off three championship points en route to winning the final set tie-breaker in style.
The 5-hr 29-minute final was much more than a match of endurance as the pair jousted, stroke for stroke in dramatic style with Alcaraz dominating the long rallies while a cool Sinner seemed happier if he could kill the rallies quickly enough on the red shale. And yet Sinner also came back to get to the brink of victory again before Alcaraz snatched his win from the very jaws of defeat.
It is almost a cliché to say now that this is the dawn of a new era of men’s tennis as the two decades of the ‘Big Three’ are over with an ageing Djokovic unable to further his hunt for another grand slam title to add to his 24. And between them, Alcaraz and Sinner have won seven of the last eight slams while Alcaraz keeps his record of never losing a slam final in five even as Sinner was denied his quest for a third slam in a row.
Understandably, the crowd was solidly behind Alcaraz, maybe more so because Sinner is yet to shed his controversial doping test failure and subsequent ban, which at 3 months, was a mere tap on the knuckles.
On the distaff side, another generational talent squeezed through to win as Coco Gauff prevailed over Aryna Sabalenka and promptly brought race into it as she said this was a win for “people like me” even as her opponent deprecated the win saying she made mistakes. The clash of colour and culture there was obvious.
