Carlos Alcaraz defends French Open title after epic tussle with Jannik Sinner

Irish Times

8 hours ago

Carlos Alcaraz
came from two sets down and saved three match points to overcome
Jannik Sinner
and defend his
French Open
title in the longest final in Roland Garros history.
The Spaniard showed incredible reserves of energy and willpower to win a five-hour 29-minute marathon and deny world number one Sinner a third consecutive Grand Slam title.
Instead Alcaraz claimed his fifth major crown at exactly the same age as his idol Rafael Nadal did, aged 22 years, one month and three days.
It was his fifth victory from his fifth final, which was the first at one of the Slams to be played between two players born this century.
READ MORE
It was also the first Grand Slam final meeting of the two young superstars of men's tennis, the best players on the planet, who have now shared the last six major titles.
And it is one that will go down as a cast-iron Roland Garros classic, a final for the ages, a high-quality, heavy-hitting marathon which finished 4-6 6-7 (4) 6-4 7-6 (3) 7-6 (10-2) to the man from Murcia.
Italian Sinner, on a 20-match winning streak at the Slams, looked certain to add the Paris title to his US and Australian Open crowns when he forged two sets ahead.
He had lost his previous four matches against Alcaraz – the most recent in the Rome final last month, his first tournament after serving a three-month doping ban.
But the 23-year-old has been almost untouchable in the French capital, dropping serve only three times before the final and saving 19 of the 22 break points he had faced.
Some loose hitting from Alcaraz gave Sinner a break in the first game of the third, but perhaps being short of matches after his enforced absence was beginning to tell as last year's winner clawed back the deficit to force a fourth.
That ended a run of 31 consecutive sets won by Sinner at Grand Slam tournaments, stretching back to the Australian Open fourth round.
With both players now playing at close to their top levels, it was Sinner who made the first move in the fourth set, breaking to love to lead 4-3.
Second seed Alcaraz, scrambling to cling on to his title, then somehow saved three championship points on his own serve, before incredibly digging even deeper to break back.
In the tie-break Sinner edged two points ahead but then started missing, while Alcaraz fired down back-to-back aces on his way to levelling the match.
Sinner had never before won a match lasting longer than four hours – mainly because he has never really had to – but he was guzzling the pickle juice at the changeover to try and find more energy.
But Alcaraz, having clinched an early break, served for the set only for Sinner to somehow chase down an outrageous drop shot to level the match again.
A 10-point tie-break was needed to separate them, an early-evening shoot-out to decide the champion, and by now Alcaraz had his eye in.
A glorious winner, a drop-shot and volley and some wayward shots from Sinner helped him race ahead, and a final, spectacular forehand winner sealed an unbelievable victory.