In a showdown between the two top-ranked players in the world, Carlos Alcaraz came from two sets down to defeat Jannik Sinner in the French Open final on Sunday—an exhausting match that lasted nearly 5½ hours and included three sets decided by tiebreaks, including the fifth. "I'm just really happy to be able to make history with you," Alcarez told Sinner as he accepted the trophy at Roland-Garros, the BBC reports. The 4-6, 6-7 (7-4), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (10-2) match was the longest French Open final of the Open era, and the second-longest men's final of any Grand Slam tournament.
Alcaraz won 192 points and No. 1 Sinner 193. Exhaustion did not rob the clay-court match of twists-and-turns drama and flourish, per the Washington Post, with the players making stunning shots until the end. Sinner, 23, had his first match point at 3 hours, 43 minutes, per the AP. Five hours in, Alcaraz served in vain for the title; he saved three match points in the fourth set. Alcaraz, 22, won in Paris last year, as he did at Wimbledon, which is the next major on the schedule. Sinner, who won the Australian Open earlier this year, had not lost a set in the French Open until Sunday.
During the presentation, per the New York Times, Sinner said, "It's an amazing trophy so I won't sleep very well tonight." He congratulated Alcaraz and told the crowd, "We gave everything we had." Greg Rusedski, a former player and BBC commentator, wrote that "Sinner is better on the hard courts than Alcaraz at the moment, but Alcaraz leads on the clay and on grass." He predicted, "This rivalry is just going to go on and on." Had the match been less great, it might have been overshadowed by the women's final the day before.
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