So, tennis fans, how’d you like another decade or so of that?
After Sunday’s French Open men’s final – a 5-hour, 29-minute epic that somehow ended with Carlos Alcaraz holding up the trophy for a second consecutive year – we can now officially close the book on the so-called Big Three era.
There’s a new game in town. And it’s as spectacular to watch as anything tennis has ever seen.
Yes, Alcaraz’s improbable comeback to beat Jannik Sinner 4-6, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (10-2) is the story of the day. Not only did Alcaraz win his fifth Grand Slam title at just one month into his 22nd year of life – an absurd accomplishment on its own – but he did it by summoning a competitive aura only the all-time greats possess.
He is, already, a legend. And that might have been the greatest match in the history of the sport.
But the best part of Sunday’s match is that it’s not the end of the story. In many ways, it’s just the beginning.
The first Slam final between Alcaraz and Sinner not only exceeded every possible expectation, it sets an entirely new narrative for the sport.
As Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal faded into retirement – most likely followed by Novak Djokovic in the next year or two – there was deep concern about what would come next after a 1½-decade battle between arguably the three best to ever hold a racket.
Now we know definitively. Tennis is in the safest of hands. And barring something unforeseen, these two spectacular athletes are going to be doing battle in Grand Slam finals for many, many years to come.
If you managed to watch the whole thing, or even just the last couple sets, it was easy to understand why that’s such a tantalizing possibility.
Let’s start with the level of play. In a word, spectacular.
Though Sinner and Alcaraz are each elite individually, combining to win the last six Grand Slam titles, the greatness they manage to draw out of each other is unique. Though different players stylistically and tactically, they have now twice played matches that could be considered among the best in the history of the sport in terms of ballstriking, endurance and the high standard it took to win a single point.
When they played a US Open quarterfinal deep into the night in 2022, with Alcaraz emerging after 5 hours, 15 minutes, it showed the possibility of a friendly rivalry between two generational talents that had stretched back to childhood. It has widely been considered the best match of the decade, not just for the length of the match but the drama and the quality they both laid on the line.
It only took three years to exceed that standard.
Which leads to the second element of this ongoing story.
What it took for Alcaraz to win that match – to beat Sinner on this particular day – was a sustained effort that few players in history could have managed. Maybe Djokovic. Maybe Nadal. Maybe.
Because even though the all-time greats have all come back from two sets down and saved match points on the way to Grand Slam titles, few have had so little help from an opponent. Sure, there may be a shot or two that Sinner would want back after failing to convert three match points in the fourth set, then failing to serve out the tournament in the next game. But mostly, from that point until the final winner came off Alcaraz’s racket, it was mostly about his greatness and his relentless shotmaking.
Even in the fifth set, with Sinner clearly tiring more quickly than his opponent, he summoned enough energy to erase Alcaraz’s early break of serve and send the match to a final tiebreak where – guess what – Alcaraz continued to pound clean winners off impossible angles.
Sinner did not lose this match. Alcaraz just got up off the clay and stole it.
We can debate where this final ranks among the 2008 Wimbledon final between Nadal and Federer or the 1980 Wimbledon final between John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg when you factor in all the intangibles. But if we’re just talking about the quality of tennis played by two men over that length of time? It would be difficult to say there’s ever been a better match.
If the world was watching Sunday, it had to love what it saw.
And when you realize what’s ahead between them – more finals, more trophies, more history – this one felt like a moment to mark in time.
One chapter of tennis closes, another begins. And it’s going to be as entertaining as any we’ve seen.
