Jannik Sinner's French Open final defeat and how to turn a loss into progress

New York Times

4 hours ago

ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — After Carlos Alcaraz's last miracle shot had whizzed past him, and the most painful thing that can happen to a tennis player had really happened, Jannik Sinner sat on his chair with his head bent between his knees, rocking back and forth, wondering how the French Open final had possibly gone this way.
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A month ago, he'd reappeared after a three-month anti-doping suspension, unsure of what his tennis might look like after the layoff. Three weeks ago, Alcaraz had handled him without too much stress to win the final of the Italian Open in Rome in straight sets.
But two hours ago, Sinner had come within a point of capturing a third Grand Slam title in a row. His fourth overall. His first on the red clay of Roland Garros, supposedly his worst surface. The guy on the other side of the net appeared to need nothing bit the lightest of shoves to fall off the cliff.
And then, everything started to go away very quickly. Alcaraz erased three championship points. Balls that Sinner had rifled at the lines all afternoon thudded into the middle of the net. From three points from victory, Sinner found himself having to play one set for all of it.
During the changeover before the fifth set, Sinner sat on his chair trying to muster the strength to fight some more, as Alcaraz sprinted on the clay and danced across the back of the court pumping his fist to the crowd as 'Sweet Caroline' blasted from the sound system.
He'd mount his own wild recovery, breaking his rival as he stood at the brink of the championship, nudging this duel as far as it could possibly go. But then Alcaraz played a match tiebreak from another planet, taking the match from Sinner one last time. As he sat rocking there, on his chair, the Italian was finally confronting the fate that was destined to befall one of these two gladiators: A first defeat in a Grand Slam final.
An hour before, it had all been so different. Those match points were gone, but there were more points to play. He'd done what the best of the best figure out how to do. He deleted everything that had happened from his mind and told himself to start again at zero. And then there was no starting over.
'When it was over, it was over,' he said, red-faced, red-eyed, feeling things he'd never felt before in this glorious but often cruel endeavor. 'You cannot change anymore when the match is over.'
Sinner went through something Sunday that can break someone's career. There's a pretty good chance nothing of the sort will happen to him.
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He went through something last year that would break a lot of players too. He tested positive for a banned substance twice, and then played some of the best tennis on the planet, having convinced two tribunals of his innocence but still waiting for the third, final judgment.
When his doping case became public, he sat and answered plenty of questions about it. And then he won the U.S. Open, amid the public derision and skepticism of some his fellow players. He won the Australian Open and continued to separate himself from everyone in the sport — with the exception of the Spanish savant he faced on Sunday in Paris — before the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), who had appealed tennis doping authorities' decision not to ban Sinner, organized a case resolution agreement with his lawyers that came with a three-month suspension attached.
Sinner knows some things about how to 'dance in the pressure storm,' as he once put it. He knows how to take a setback with both pain and grace, and how to come back from it. All that said, this one hurt.
'Difficult to accept now because I had lots of chances, but this is the good part of the sport,' he said. 'Also today it got me the sad part, no? But, you know, if you watch only the sad part, you're never going to come back.'
On the podium during the trophy ceremony, he'd been the definition of grace when the hurt was as raw as it had been. Tennis is unique in its sadism, making its loser hang around amid the victory celebration.
As Sinner sat on his chair, a video played above on a giant screen, celebrating Alcaraz's journey to the title. He didn't dare look up. But then he took the microphone and told Alcaraz how much he deserved the win. It was a stark contrast to 24 hours before, when Aryna Sabalenka lost a knife-edge championship match to Coco Gauff.
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Then she told the world that she lost because she had played terribly amid horribly windy conditions. Whatever Sabalenka had done, Sinner was doing the opposite.
He remains baffled by his existence. His mother was at the final Sunday, but not his father. He's a chef in northern Italy. He had to work.
'We are just a very simple family,' he said.
He leaned on them during the tough times last year. He plans to lean on them too get through the after-effects of Sunday. He was so close.
'I was break up in the third,' he said. 'A break up in the fourth. Was three match points. Serving for the match. Came back. 6-5, I had chances also in the fifth. So many chances I couldn't use. Sometimes you have these days like you have. You can't really do anything now.
'It's a giving at times, and sometimes you take something,' he said. 'And now it's my time to take something from the close people I have.'
He was smiling as he spoke, by then. He knew this was part of what he had signed on for. Even at this low moment, there was gratitude for getting to a place where he said he never dreamed he might be. He'd been a part of one of the most memorable matches in the sport's modern era, with another of its great talents.
'It's good for the whole movement of tennis and the crowd,' he said, a hint of the smile still there. 'It was a good atmosphere today and also to be part of it, it's very special. Of course I'm happy to be part of this. Would be even more happy if I would have here the big trophy. But as I said, you can't change it now.'
No, he can't. But tennis doesn't stop. Another Grand Slam, Wimbledon starts in three weeks. Very quickly, Sinner will be back.