During Sunday’s Wimbledon final, at the most crucial juncture of the match until that point, Jannik Sinner ostensibly took a leaf out of his opponent’s book.
Serving to win the second set and level the scores, Sinner did not retreat into himself or play within his comfort zone, instead raising his level another gear and producing some of the flash that has become the trademark of his rival, Carlos Alcaraz. He won a triplet of points with some of his most sensational play – with a backhand pass on the run after an impossible get, a running forehand down the line, and then a crosscourt forehand that singed past his opponent. From there, he would stay steady while Alcaraz dipped. It would prove to be the period of the match where the tide turned.
In his assessment of the match in the aftermath of the defeat, his first-ever in a Major final, Alcaraz, too, would point to the second set as being the moment where his grip on the contest loosened. But not because Sinner was able to produce the spectacular, but because he was able to do the more mundane things with consistency and relentlessness.
“Sinner, from the second set onwards, raised his level from the baseline. At that point, I didn’t know what to do; I felt that he was being more complete than me,” the Spaniard said.
Sinner and Alcaraz leave the summer tennis season at honours even. At one Major a piece, having both beaten one another in a final, they will go into the US Open to break the deadlock. They end the clay and grass stretches having established their burgeoning rivalry and stamped their authority as the two players who are decidedly better than the chasing pack.
If these two phenomenally talented young players are to live up to the expectations that are harboured of them – that their success and inter-personal rivalry will guide men’s tennis into an exciting new era – both can stand to learn a few lessons from the other.
If Sinner is to become the kind of superstar that Alcaraz had already become before Sunday’s outing, he could learn to be a bit more unpredictable, throwing in some variety alongside his commanding baseline play to not only endear himself to sports lovers across the world but also find different ways of winning.
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In their French Open final last month, Sinner was brilliant from the baseline but tentative when moved out of that comfort zone. Even when he approached the net or threw in slices and drop shots, he looked unsure of himself. On the big points, he stuck to his fine-tuned game plan, hardly going for the riskier, low-percentage options. Alcaraz did the same with conviction and finesse, playing with abandon even when under pressure, and ultimately stole the match despite trailing by three championship points.
On Sunday, Sinner would look assured during his use of variety. He went for broke far more often and not just in the final game of that second set – hitting 40 winners compared to Alcaraz’s 38 – and also approached the net double the amount of times than his opponent, winning 30 of those 40 points. He took massive cuts on Alcaraz’s second serve in the latter half of the match, getting the decisive break in the fourth set by hitting two backhand returns down the line for winners.
“Champions learn from their – I’m not going to say failures – but they learn from the losses. I knew at the beginning that he was going to learn from that final, not going to make the same mistakes as he did in the French Open final. The way he played today, it was really high. I knew he was going to play like this,” Alcaraz said on Sunday.
And the Spaniard must also take some lessons from his most recent defeat, his first at the Championships in three years.
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If Alcaraz is to replicate Sinner’s remarkable all-surface excellence and consistency, he could learn to be a bit predictable himself, finding consistent ways of prevailing in tight matches when the chips are down and not seeking to win every single point in brilliant ways.
Sinner’s mantra for such tour-leading domination – he leads the rankings as World No. 1 by a margin of 4,000 points over Alcaraz – is his sheer relentlessness. He may not have the spins, variations and mixed bag of tools that Alcaraz has but he can repeatedly hit a hard, flat and precise ball from the baseline even for hours on end, without letting his level slide. He is better at controlling the controllables.
This is where the Spaniard erred on Sunday. Once he lost that knife-edged, evenly-fought second set, he simply allowed Sinner to take control from the baseline. He would be heard complaining to his box that his opponent is just too much better than him on the day.
He lost the same zeal he had shown in the rest of the tournament while returning Sinner’s serve, and his own first strike, with its new, improved and more fluent service motion, totally deserted him. His first-serve success rate fell to a paltry 44% in the third and fourth sets.
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There will be wild anticipation for another chapter of this rivalry in the future. But what may be more intriguing is how much of each other’s game they can imbibe. Until then, wait with baited breath for round three in New York.
