THE ALL-TIME COMEBACK ALLOWS ALCARAZ TO CHASE HISTORY AS SINNER DROWNS
Never mind three championship points, which Alcaraz doused in the fourth set before winning a monumental French Open final over Sinner, whose career has deeper problems than positive steroids tests
He owned three championship points and lost all three, the root of repulsion. For Jannik Sinner, an Italian who wore a retro-polo shirt with a white collar, the ultimate collapse was more destructive to his career Sunday than a three-month suspension for steroids. From the feral crowd at Roland-Garros that cheered against him — “Al-ca-raz! Al-ca-raz!,” they chanted — to the historians who know what the result means in Grand Slam terminology, the moment was a menace in his tennis life.
Will Sinner recover? Ever? The better question is whether Carlos Alcaraz, who has mastered one of the great comebacks in sports history, will move on to contest Novak Djokovic for the most major titles ever? For net paramours and folks more casual, the French Open final was a monumental happening that reminds people to keep watching tennis, though Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have retired and Djokovic will join them. The loser will deal with massive emotional fallout, just as he has spent months denying he was knowingly using Clostebol — as baseball’s Fernando Tatis Jr. did before his 80-game suspension — when no one really believes Sinner.
As for Alcaraz, he can read Nadal’s joyful text — “Enhorabuena!,” with a trophy and a muscled arm in emojis — and realize he won the second-longest Slam event in the Open era. In five hours and 29 minutes, he overcame Sinner’s lapses in the most treasured example of how he overcomes whatever is in his way. He is only 22 years old. Can we imagine how he’ll be performing — and how many majors he’ll have — at 32? Or 37?
It did not matter to him that Sinner was up 5-3 in the fourth set and ready to win his fourth Grand Slam event, which would tie him in the rankings with Alcaraz. Up 40-0, Sinner was long with a ground stroke. Then he sent a backhand past the baseline. Then he could have ended the match and hit it into the net. Forty-forty. In the many times they will meet again in majors, Alcaraz won’t forget how he unfastened Sinner and went on to win 22 of the next 30 points. He controlled the fifth set, until Sinner made a late charge, but before a tiebreaker finished the dram, what did Alcaraz do?
He cupped his ear with his fingers, demanding more from an audience that had been delirious for hours. He won 10-2, fell into the clay and immediately found leg strength to celebrate with his coach and his parents in the stands. Sinner? He stared with a towel in his seat, tears forming in his eyes. This was not the first time a major had been won after saving championship points. But this will be the one we remember: 4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 7-6.
“When the situations are against you, then you have to keep fighting. It’s a Grand Slam final, it’s no time to be tired, no time to give up,” Alcaraz said. “Do I enjoy that? The real champions are made in those situations. Today, it was all about the belief in myself.”
He is a real champion, with five Slams — don’t laugh — only one-fifth of the way to passing Djokovic’s 24. The Big Three era included battles with monsters at every major. Alcaraz only has to deal with Sinner. Is that still true? “I’m just proud. I'm just really, really happy," said Alcaraz, who quickly saluted Sinner. “I know how hard you’re chasing this tournament. You're going to be champion — not once but many, many times. It's a privilege to share the court with you in every tournament, making this story with you.”
“I’m very happy for you, and you deserve it, so congrats,” said Sinner, who is 23. “It's an amazing trophy, so I won't sleep tonight very well, but it's OK.”
It is not OK. When the World Anti-Doping Agency fired at Sinner, refusing to blame two members of his team for two positive steroids test in March 2024, he was not allowed to play until the Italian Open. His countrypeople supported him last month, but he knew the French fans might haunt him. The “Al-ca-raz!” chants couldn’t have helped. “It’s definitely going to be different. I know that,” he said when the tournament started. “It’s right that they support the players who are from here.”
Alcaraz is from Spain, the homeland of Nadal. He remains a showman who allows his mind to wander, which explains why he fell behind by two sets. In his world, he needs to be challenged. Three championship points? What’s next? “To Paris, you have been really important support to me. You were insane, unbelievable for me,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough. You were really important, you are in my heart, and you will always be.”
No way Djokovic could have hung in for 5:29 at 38. After losing a semifinal to Sinner, he kissed his hand and tapped the dirt with his finger. “I mean, this could have been the last match ever I played here, so I don’t know. That’s why I was a bit more emotional even in the end,” he said. “But if this was the farewell match of Roland-Garros for me in my career, it was wonderful in terms of atmosphere and what I got from the crowd.”
We have fresh life now. Once, we thought we had two new champions to embrace.
We have one.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.