When Carlos Alcaraz is fully focused and his impossibly complete game is in full flow, nothing in the world can stop him. As he has spent the early years of his career collecting major titles at a breathless pace, this has been clear for a long time. On the biggest stage in tennis, he reinforced the sentiment with a stupendous performance against his greatest rival, completely outplaying Jannik Sinner, the No 1 and defending champion, to lift his second US Open title with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 win.
At the end of his most spectacular summer, Alcaraz will replace Sinner as world No 1, returning to the top ranking for the first time in two years. The 22-year-old also continues to mark himself as one of the greatest ever young players: he is the second-youngest man in the Open era to earn six grand slam titles, trailing only Björn Borg. He is also already the fourth man to win multiple grand slam titles on all three surfaces.
This match-up marked the first time the same men have competed in three major finals in the Open era in the same calendar year, with Alcaraz finishing the trilogy with a 2-1 lead. He now holds a 10-5 record over Sinner, winning seven of their past eight meetings.
On this occasion, Alcaraz could do anything he wanted with the tennis ball for the best part of three hours. He served brilliantly and struck his devastating forehand with total precision, but he also showcased his variation in full, constantly varying the pace, spin and trajectory of his shots. He kept Sinner completely off balance and unable to gain any rhythm with his destructive groundstrokes.
This was one of the most significant days of the tennis year, and yet the narrative was hijacked by the presence of Donald Trump, the US president. Overnight, Arthur Ashe Stadium was tightly encircled by airport-style security barriers and as fans began to queue up in order to enter the stadium, they were watched over by Secret Service agents. The men’s trophy was placed in the Rolex suite alongside Trump, which is not the usual protocol. When the US president was finally shown on the big screen at the end of the first set, most of the audience booed.
As 2pm approached, the embarrassment continued for the United States Tennis Association. Due to the dramatically heightened security, the queues to enter the stadium spanned across the tournament grounds and the start was delayed until 2.30pm. The final began with thousands of fans still waiting to take their seats. Hundreds were still outside during the second set.
Nobody, it turns out, was as excited for a rematch of the French Open and Wimbledon finals as Alcaraz himself. He was spellbinding from the beginning, every part of his prodigious game flowing. He continued the excellent serving form that has guided him through the tournament and he struck his destructive forehand with total freedom, completely dominating the baseline.
At the core of his performance, though, was the way he unfurled the various layers of his impossibly complete game, forcing Sinner to deal with skidding low slices, forays to the net, constant changes to the trajectory of the ball and drop shots. With the roof closed due to rain, the sterile indoor conditions were widely considered a positive for Sinner, but Alcaraz set the tone with a flawless opening set.
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After facing an hour of relentless pressure, Sinner dragged himself into the match on Alcaraz’s serve at 2-1, closing out a brilliant point after a masterful forehand drop volley to reach 0-30 before breaking serve to love. After hitting just two unforced errors in set one, Alcaraz’s growing error count allowed Sinner to grow into the match. Suddenly, Sinner was hitting his spots with his first serve and controlling many more of the exchanges with his destructive, metronomic ball striking as he efficiently levelled the match.
Less than two months ago at Wimbledon, Sinner trailed Alcaraz by a set before bulldozing through the final three sets. There would be no repeat here. Alcaraz recovered, re-establishing his dominant serving, his variation and his control of the baseline. After snatching the opening break, he flitted through the third set to establish a two sets to one lead before immediately generating break points on Sinner’s serve.
With his back to the wall, Sinner fought desperately until the end. He won many of the frenetic, scattered cat-and-mouse points typical of this rivalry, including a stunning combination of volleys down break point at 0-1 in the fourth set that drew a finally full stadium to its feet. However, when he is in this mood, and everything is flowing so effortlessly, Alcaraz’s game can scale to heights that nobody else, including Sinner, can reach. Even now, six majors in, it feels as if he has only just begun.
