Twin towers: Kunal Pradhan writes on the Sincaraz saga

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

It was April 1, 2019, just another All Fools' Day in our strange world. Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz at the French Open in June. (Getty Images)
Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika faced massive protests after nearly 20 years in power; actor Felicity Huffman pleaded guilty in a varsity cheating scandal; British parliament voted against four Brexit alternatives; and a US judge rejected a plan by Donald Trump (in his first term) to send asylum-seekers to Mexico.
Amid this global churning, in the Mediterranean port city of Alicante, two teenagers faced each other for the first time in the opening round of a nondescript Challenger tennis tournament.
From Sexten, Italy: Jannik Sinner, 17. From Murcia, Spain: Carlos Alcaraz, 15.
The world did not know it then, but the encounter would mark the start of two fairy-tale storylines: distinct yet connected, separate yet intertwined. Let's call it Sincaraz Day.
Six years later, in June and July 2025, these two stories would collide over the course of two matches, played on two of the tennis world's biggest stages, the Stade Roland Garros in Paris and the All-England Club in London, setting the tone for a new era in sport. A passing of the torch, if you will, from the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic Age of the GOATs.
Alcaraz came from two sets down to dismantle Sinner on the red Paris clay, and Sinner brushed off a first set loss to demolish Alcaraz on London's hallowed grass. If one had thoroughly dominated the other in both encounters, it wouldn't have been so significant.
Sport needs rivalries that divide fan bases and consequently unite passion. Tyranny is boring, resistance is magnetic.
Perfect match
What makes the battle now underway between Sinner and Alcaraz so captivating is that they could not be more different, as players and as people.
Though they are both consummate all-surface all-courters, Alcaraz has drawn different elements more sharply from the three legends he set out to replace. There is a touch of Roger Federer's artistry in the kinds of shots he can make — for example, the incredible down-the-line forehand from wide of the court to win the French Open title.
There is a hint of Novak Djokovic's defence in the way he fights back from impossible positions in rallies — for instance, the desperate forehand slice to stay in the point, followed by a lunging drop shot to take the first set in the Wimbledon final.
And there is the stamp of Rafael Nadal in how he alternates between incredible speed and unprecedented revs to control the tempo of every rally: drop shot, slice, top spin, then a burst of power for the winner.
Sinner is more direct, a ruthless serve-plus-one and return-plus-one finisher against lesser opponents, and a relentless hitter of high-percentage shots when he is better matched. His is a meat-and-potatoes approach to tennis that is simplifying the formula for greatness: quick, prescient, precise and powerful.
As the redoubtable sports commentator Peter Bodo wrote in Tennis magazine last year: 'If you tried to create a player with AI, you would probably end up with someone like Sinner.'
Their personalities mirror their styles of play. If Alcaraz is the passionate Spaniard, conducting with the crowd while he's 'vamos'-ing his way through points, Sinner is the smiling assassin whose fist pumps are reserved for his coaching team and family.
As in all such clashes of sporting philosophies, those who choose to love one of them will probably end up hating the other.
Tied together
Though Sinner and Alcaraz had won the last six Grand Slams before Wimbledon, claiming three each, the Italian was facing a crisis as he stepped on to the hallowed London grass.
He was world No. 1, one of only eight players in history to amass 10,000 ranking points, and on the verge of becoming only the fifth (after Federer, Djokovic, Nadal and Andy Murray) to cross the 12,000 mark. Yet Alcaraz had defeated him at each of their last five meetings. Roland Garros, where Sinner lost in a five-and-a-half-hour battle after failing to convert three match points, further cemented the narrative that the Spaniard somehow had his number. The Wimbledon final, therefore, felt like a last chance to make it a real rivalry and hyphenate their legacies.
Hyphenations are important, particularly in individual sport. When you think of one player, you must think of another, to make a legacy rise above statistics. Ali vs Frazier, Prost vs Senna, Kasparov vs Karpov, Navratilova vs Evert, McEnroe vs Borg, even Messi vs Ronaldo and Sachin vs Lara, are legends whose battles raged in lived history, irrespective of how many titles who won, to encapsulate our life and times.
Now, just as the frenzy of Federer vs Nadal vs Djokovic was starting to fade, Sinner and Alcaraz have stepped forward. It may be early days for them, but Paris and London have shown that all the elements are in place for a fight for the ages. Pick whichever you like; more power to Sincaraz.