Wimbledon 2025 men's singles final: Jannik Sinner v Carlos Alcaraz

The Guardian

9 hours ago

Update:
Date: 2025-07-13T13:30:40.000Z
Title: Preamble
Content: We all lie to ourselves all the time, inventing stories to make ourselves look better or look worse, feel better or feel worse; to explain the haphazard chaos we call life.
Sportsfolk, though, have turned this routine into an art. How else could they perform fine motor skills, under pressure and exhausted, in front of a crowd offering feedback in real time?
Consequently, when we hear Jannik Sinner say he's over losing the French Open final, from two sets and three match-points up, we can sort of believe him. As the psychological axiom has it – an antidote to so many of the grudges, injustices and disappointments we let needlessly weigh us down – 'that was then and this is now.'
But as Sinner prepares to meet Carlos Alcaraz again, are we seriously to believe the scarring has no impact? That his first Wimbledon final, facing the man who crushed his dreams in Paris, is just another match, irrelevant to anything which precedes it?
Because what to us is narrative, to Sinner is pain – and a problem to be solved. Against everyone else, he's dominating almost all of the time; against Alcaraz, he's lost five times in a row. If the key to stopping him isn't to be found in their previous contests, does it even exist?
Sinner will argue the answer lies with him, not with his opponent. The margins are thin, so if he can impose his considerable strengths at the crucial moments – if he can perform those fine motor skills, under pressure and exhausted – it shouldn't matter what his opponent does.
This is a clever way of looking at the world – we have no control over others, so all we can really do is deliver the best of ourselves and hope for the best – all the more so when confronted by an arch improvisor like Alcaraz. Often, even he won't know what he's going to do until he's done it so, rather than predict him, it makes more sense to rush, hamper and crowd him.
The problem Sinner has is there's a fervency about Alcaraz that is almost religious. He has no sense of his own fallibility, convinced by the mystical power of his own talent and creativity – with good reason. He knows he can win Wimbledon, he knows he can beat Sinner on the biggest occasion and he knows he cannot lose a grand slam final; he knows he is Carlos Alcaraz, who makes the impossible possible. Which is, of course, a lie he tells himself, but it is a lie which is true; that was then and that is now.
Meantime, the rest of us can simply look forward to a match-up that is already one of the classics. The Roland Garros final was one of the greatest ever, in any sport, and nothing about these two, as individuals and as rivals, suggests they won't invent another epic story to elevate the haphazard chaos we call life.
Play: 4pm BST