Tennis, bloody hell

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner served up an all-time classic on Court Philippe-Chatrier this weekend, in a glorious entrée for the new era of tennis.

An unheralded beauty of sport is you can be plopped on the couch aimlessly channel hopping on an otherwise lazy Sunday afternoon, when next thing you are abruptly dropped into one of the all-time greatest sporting occasions.

That’s what happened at Roland-Garros on Sunday, as Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner played out a mesmerising five and a half hours of tennis, a 4–6, 6–7, 6–4, 7–6, 7–6 (10–2 tie-break) score-line, including a fourth set in which the Italian squandered three championship points - or rather, Alcaraz heroically clawed his way back from the brink of defeat.

In the Parisian dusk, with red clay streaking their Nike adorned gear, the two turned Court Philippe-Chatrier into both a battleground and a ballet. Evoking the Federer–Nadal classic of 2008, this was our first taste of the next-gen twist that now carries tennis.

It may have been the greatest French Open final ever. It’s certainly one of the finest matches of tennis ever played on such a stage. The fight, the tenacity, the never-ending stamina and battle of wills to dual it out for five and a half hours. Somehow, as the two beat and bent the clay court to their will, they both seemed to get better as the match wore on.

Every so often the camera would cut to Andre Agassi in the crowd, mouth agape, totally aghast at what he was witnessing. Other times the camera would find someone like NFL star Odell Beckham Jr, he himself no stranger to momentary feats of the extraordinary, on his feet in the stands urging the two on. In another corner, Spike Lee seemed stunned into rare silence.

Sinner, marching out to a two-set lead, had everything in control until the Spaniard settled with a set of his own. But as Sinner soared into a 5-3 game lead in the fourth set, it looked all but done. In the set’s ninth game he marched to a 40-0 lead. The championship was within his grasp. But 2024’s reigning champion ignited into a comeback for the ages, eventually taking the match into a fifth and final set, the first ever to win from such a tournament deficit.

Alcaraz, up until this weekend 4-0 in major finals, has quickly adorned his mantle and sealed his legacy as one of the fastest rising talents the sport has ever seen. He became the youngest player to reach world number one in 2022, when he won the US Open, and became the youngest player to a career Grand Slam. Although dawn descends on the big three with Novak Djokovic the last clinging onto play, Alcaraz has arrived as the warrior in waiting to carry tennis forward into this new era.

His rival yesterday hadn’t dropped a set all tournament, his second tournament back after a doping violation proffered a conveniently scheduled suspension prior to the French Open. The circumstances of that situation felt murky at best, not least the fact similar cases have seen far harsher sentences laid down. But there’s no denying his ability on the court, possibly the most consistent player on the tour for the past 18 months, having already bagged three Grand Slams at 23. And he looks to be a player destined to rival Alcaraz for the next decade, if not shadow him given the Grand Slam evidence so far.

Sinner has been described as a tennis robot with every shot a push of a button away, as evidenced at the weekend. Alcaraz, by contrast, wears his heart on his sleeve, more emotive and human, granted his shots are as mechanically tuned Sinner. The Spaniard is seemingly able to dig deeper into an endless reservoir of grit and relentlessness that conjured up so much magic on Sunday. He blitzed Sinner 10–2 in the final tie-break, a masterclass in shot-making under pressure.

It’s easy to get hyperbolic about sport and moments like this that come and go, and on the other side it’s equally simply to fall into cynicality and criticism of what modern sport is. The branding, the marketing, the Rolex watches that were unboxed on their wrists to appease the tournament’s main sponsor. But it’s moments like these, events where you are pitting two athletes at the peak of their powers in a battle of sweat and hunger that sometimes the beauty of sport creeps back out and you get reminded of why you just love the bloody thing.

As the match reached its crescendo, the TNT commentary team fell silent, letting the play on the court speak all for itself. It was just two players and their arena, exchanging blockbuster shots and blows until Alcaraz somehow came out on top. Sinner, somewhat stoic in defeat, may have left it behind him, but there were no tears, no overriding sense of loss. Tennis may be a physical grind, but it’s also a psychological crucible and for Sinner, those three missed championship points will haunt him in the weeks and months to come, driving him further on.

This won’t be their last rodeo. As tennis emerges into what’s becoming a more familiar new territory, it feels like these two will be pitted against each other again and again in a sporting rivalry that will carry the sport forward and have us tuning in every single time.

This wasn’t just a Grand Slam final, it was the clearest signal yet that the post-Djokovic era is not a vacuum but a stage set for something equally compelling. Delivering such an immense match shows that Alcaraz and Sinner are not merely replacing greatness, but growing and reimagining it.

In their first Grand Slam final together, they brought the house down and the sporting world to a halt. I don’t know how they’ll top this, but in the unheralded beauty of sport at it’s finest, I’ll absolutely be there for it.