Roland Garros, Paris – It was like tennis dreamed.
Five and a half hours of exciting play and relentless drama between the two new stars of male tennis. The introduction to the broader world of a new rivalry that this sport hopes can transport the torch given by the three large Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
By serving one of the best and most dramatic matches in tennis history, it looked like Jannik Sinner, 23, and Carlos Alcaraz, 22was announced in the world in general. Tennis needs their rivalry to be the time and their first Grand Slam final One against each other delivered beyond his most fanciful expectations.
They are already stars of anyone who follows semi-Regular tennis, but this catapult of their talents, personalities and profiles in transcendence means more than all sports statistics. However, they divided the last six grand slam between them, winning three each. Alcaraz won five years and a month, the same age as Nadal when he arrived at this number.
It was the 12th couple’s meeting in total (Alcaraz led the head to head 8-4 after his fifth consecutive victory), but a first Grand Chelem final means more for the whole world than any other type of match. These meetings take tennis players in the dominant current. Not only for the big plans, but the revelation of whom they are as people, exposing them in a way that few sports can, creating links with the public for five hours and 29 minutes of shared experience.
He feels almost intangible in certain respects, but ultimately it was from Alcaraz Open of France final. It went through 4-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2), after saving three championship points down 3-5 in the fourth set. He then resisted the sinner serving the match, as well as the disappointment not to serve him himself in the fifth set, to pass in an equality break in which he passed the God mode at the end of the second largest final of the great slam in history. Alcaraz has only become the third man in the open tennis era (since 1968) to save the championship points and to win a major final. It was also the first time that Alcaraz had returned from two sets to love in a match, in the ninth attempt.
All this means that the instant judgment is that it belongs to the conversation with the great finals of tradition, those that tennis fans and many occasional people can struggle without even thinking. Björn Borg against John McENROE, Wimbledon 1980; Federer vs Nadal, Wimbledon 2008; Djokovic vs Nadal, Australian Open 2012. The quality of this match was not as high on both sides of the net at the same time as some of them, but they share something more important for tennis as a whole: the way these players were watched were never the same.
It was a final that presented their personalities and the dynamics of rivalry, as well as their ridiculous capacities. The sinner was generally more stable, but being thus, he has shown the world that his basic tennis level is ridiculous at the limit. Alcaraz, whose soil is less safe, has gone from a few hollows to strike its sparkling ceiling, which is unparalleled from now on.
In the last games, with a sinner barely credible fortitude to come back and hit sublime choots of his own, Alcaraz produced a reflex volley, a reverse winner, then a pass on the same wing of deeply behind the basic line which miraculously stole in front of his opponent. In the equality break, Alcaraz became Supernova and rightly sealed the match with a right to pass the line on the race.
The contrast in styles, with Alcaraz having more variety but also being more a tortured genius which can fluctuate high absurds with apparently inexplicable lows, is a convincing element of rivalry. The sinner is the world’s n ° 1 and more coherent, but the Hauts d’Alcaraz are higher.
Sunday showed that and the world was also able to see the staging of Alcaraz – his finger in his ear after one of his incredible flying, as well as his refusal to accept that he was beaten. The sinner equaled it in this regard and such was the emotional assessment of this final that the normally calm Italian let his frustration escape from points in the fifth set. Nothing reveals the personality of a tennis player like this kind of occasion and little sports are as revealing as this one. Even once the match is over, asking the loss of players to devastate in words is brutal.
There was no Andy Murray in tears after losing the Wimbledon 2012 final to Roger Federer, when Murray delivered the line “I get closer to the whole world, but the sinner always got attached to a lot by holding the microphone and being quite graceful, after all this, praise the man who had just fuck his dreams.
“It’s an incredible trophy, so I won’t sleep very well tonight, but it’s okay,” said Sinner.
Alcaraz was also generous in his tribute to his beaten rival, then addressed the worshiper crowd: “In Paris, you have been really important to me since the first practice of the first round. You were crazy, incredible for me. I can’t thank you enough. You were really important, you are in my heart, and you will always be. “
A few minutes earlier, when the match came to its conclusion and the tension swollen, half of the supporters chanted “Carlos, Carlos”, while the other half replied with “Jannik, Jannik”. While the noise of the Court Philippe-Chatrier became stronger, it was impossible not to be transported to Wimbledon 17 years ago and to remember the Federer-Nadal final.
Many of the grown-ups of the game compared this final to it, and there is generally no higher praise for a tennis match than that. “For sport, it’s something incredible to have these players after Roger, Rafa and Novak are still playing, but this kind of rivalry,” said Juan Carlos Ferrero, Alcaraz coach and former world n ° 1 and Roland Garros champion.
“Since these two guys who are fighting for large trophies, I think we have to be very happy in tennis sport. For them, that’s for them, that’s something they are increasing their level every time they go on the field. They know they have to play incredible tennis to beat the other guy and it is something that will help each player increase the level even more.”
Who knows where this rivalry will end, but after the end of the three great, male tennis could not have asked for more.
(Top Photo: Andy Cheung / Getty Images)
