You & I
Maybe that's the way it'll be. Or who knows... or maybe we'll never see each other again.
Getting déjà vu yet?
For the third time in seven weeks, and the third consecutive big tournament, the tennis gods have blessed us with yet another SinCaraz final. From not having this matchup for seven long months to getting it three times so close together feels a bit crazy, yet still not overwhelming. Matches like this are what make the sport and the players involved great. These high-profile clashes between what are now clearly not only the two best men’s tennis players born after 1987, but also two legitimate all-time greats, feel long overdue.
This will already be their second match on what is arguably the most famous court in tennis, and like every match from now on, it will carry major legacy implications, both for how things stand now and how the future may shape up.
A matchup history, some tactics, and a lot of intangibles, as I try my best to objectively break down a match I have been dreading, but still looking forward to, for a long time.
HEAD TO HEAD
I have always believed and said that the Sinner-Alcaraz rivalry is not surface-dependent. Every match truly starts 50-50 to me (unless it’s on a hard court with a CPI over 40), and we see that ourselves in these matches too.
Despite what conventional wisdom might say, Sinner won the match that was played in the second slowest conditions, and quite convincingly, while Carlos won their second fastest surface-speed match in straight sets. Granted, they were very different players in each of those matches, but the trend of either player having a solid chance to win against the other in any given conditions still holds true, and makes this rivalry all the more interesting.
We all know Carlos has won their last five matches. Four of those went to a deciding set, and two to a match tiebreak. This is like tossing a coin and getting heads five times in a row. Do you know the odds for that? 3.125%. So, how did the Spaniard do it? Apart from some tactical patterns and him simply being the better shotmaker, one thing that doesn’t get talked about enough is how Carlos has brought the mental aspect of this rivalry closer to the mean, shown by the change in break points won and saved percentages since this streak started.
Lastly, to conclude this section, my firm belief that this rivalry is competitive and has an unpredictable result across surfaces still holds. But it would be foolish not to see that the slower the conditions, the more it should favor Carlos, and the faster the conditions, the more it should favor Sinner. I hope by the end of this, it’s a bit clearer to you why.
PATTERNS
SERVE RETURN
The most talked about and important aspect of this matchup recently, and the one that will, in all likelihood, determine the outcome, given how amplified its importance is on this surface.
We all agree that Sinner has the better serve here, but interestingly, since the change in his motion in 2023, he hasn’t managed to separate himself from Carlos in this department.
In no match, despite clearly having the better serve, has Sinner out-served Carlos. And in the matches where he has won a higher percentage of points off his first delivery, he hasn’t landed it in enough compared to Carlos, pretty much negating the advantage.
Why?
You could say that Carlos is the best returner Sinner comes up against. He pressures the serve with return positions and tactics in ways no one else does. This retroactively plays on Sinner’s mind, making him overcompensate at times and not approach his serve the way he usually does. Tomorrow, Sinner needs to have a typical service day: over 63% first serves in, no double faults, and a reliable second serve that wins him more points than he loses.
Here comes a factor that will be crucial tomorrow: how does Carlos return Jannik’s second serve? A historically great first-serve returner on grass, Carlos has struggled with second-serve returns throughout this grass run since 2023. Why? I can’t quite figure that out. Maybe it’s a too-many-options problem, or a timing issue because he can’t judge the speed off the bounce as well on grass.
These issues have also stuck with him this tournament, with three of his six opponents so far winning more than 60% of their second-serve points. Only Norrie was the one opponent who got hammered on his second serve. This is a bit, or more than a bit, concerning, but then again, Carlos has shown before that he can flip the switch instantly in a big match.
The last sneaky big factor here is Carlos’s kick serve. Across the past five matches, all were played on surfaces that reward a heavy kicker out wide from the ad side, jumping up at the returner’s (Sinner’s) shoulder on the backhand side.
You can see Sinner already took notice of this before their Roland Garros final last month, famously adopting a Nishikori-style slanted return stance. The good thing for him at Wimbledon is that the serve won’t kick up anyway, and if Carlos tries it, it will more often than not land right in Sinner’s strike zone.
BASELINE DUEL
Always the most fascinating part of a matchup between these two, who are now by consensus the two greatest baseliners in the world. Both of them are so similar, yet so different in this area.
Similar to how? They both intrinsically believe in the same concept: power is power, pace is pace, see the ball, hit the ball as fast and powerfully as you can, and repeat.
Different how? They both take different routes to reach the same destination.
Sinner believes in shrinking the court, primarily through depth. He wants the opponent to suffocate, to feel the air get tighter, to feel desperate. He pounces on any weakness shown and abuses it until the match is over, leaving you feeling not even human anymore.
Alcaraz might look more forgiving, but deep down, he’s probably worse. He wants to expand the court, using height and width. He wants you to believe you have a chance, and when you have that hope, he destroys you. He makes you run to places you didn’t think a tennis ball could go, leaving you wondering what just happened.
Dramatics aside, I hope you got my point. This contrasting approach is what makes their matches, their baseline rallies, so beautiful to watch as a neutral. On top of that, they both know they’re making history every time they play each other. Interestingly, people, including myself, would give Carlos the slight edge in longer rallies, but even in their last five matches, all of which the Spaniard won, they have been practically dead even in this category.
The pattern Carlos used most to his advantage here was the heavy, high forehand ball, stretching Sinner out wide to his forehand, or the high looper (a low-pace ball to bait errors) to the Italian’s backhand. Again, grass will minimize the impact of both of these, and most definitely the former.
The solution to this? Take a page out of Dimitrov’s book: use the slice. I chalk the Dimitrov match up as an anomaly and don’t take much else from it, but the slice is still king. Sinner, like Djokovic, is an AI baseliner. He’s a machine: hits the ball, gets the ball, hits it again. He never gets rushed, unlike Carlos. So, to extract errors from this machine, you have to alter his contact points. If the high, heavy option isn’t available on grass, the low, slow one surely is, and it must be used at all costs. A linear-to-linear battle here will favor the Italian.
Speaking of whom, he needs to make sure it stays just that. Get aggressive the first chance he gets, which he will, and trust that grass rewards elite aggression over elite defense from the Spaniard. If he manages to rush either of Carlos’s wings, which on a faster surface can be done, he and his team (and his fans, unfortunately) should feel really good about the result. The more cross-to-cross rallies off either side, the more likely Sinner is to win those, as he’s the cleaner ball striker with better control, too.
HEAD AND LEGS
Carlos starts the match as the favourite, both literally and figuratively. I do give him the edge mentally in this matchup right now. He’s coming off a win against Sinner from two sets down, three match points down. No matter how much Sinner or Carlos himself tries to downplay that, it did happen. We all saw it. Although I think that’s an unlikely repeat, who’s to say that if Sinner finds himself with a big lead again, he doesn’t let Carlos back in?
The thing going for Sinner here is exactly that Carlos is the favourite. He’s not playing with house money; he never really will now, but he does have the peace of mind knowing that if he loses, he lost to someone who might very well end up a top-three player of all time on this surface.
I give the raw movement advantage to Carlos and the sliding on grass advantage to Sinner. The truth is, both of them are such elite defenders and movers that the difference might matter for a couple of points, but not enough to completely alter the outcome of the match. Then again, you could say these matchups do end up coming down to a point or two.
STAKES
A lot of them, for both of them. I called their Roland Garros final beforehand “one of the top five most important men’s matches of the 2020s,” and with the way it all transpired, this one goes straight onto that list as well.
CARLOS ALCARAZ
Do you know how hard it is to three-peat a Slam? Only six men have ever done it in the Open Era, and all six probably make your top eight greatest men’s Open Era players list, depending on how highly you rate McEnroe. Carlos would add himself to that list at 22 years of age.
He would also defend the Channel Slam, something that hasn’t been done since Borg in the late 70s. Along with that, he would join Nadal and Borg as the only men ever to win multiple Channel Slams, pretty good company, no?
But most importantly, he would defend home court. With the way the tour is now, and how good Sinner is on hard courts, Carlos enters every natural surface Slam knowing this is his territory; he needs to make the most of it to keep up with (and stay ahead of) his rival. Win tomorrow, and he does just that, with a legitimate chance at year-end No. 1. Lose, and although this natural surface swing will still stand as the best stretch of his career so far, he’ll hit a hurdle before facing nine more months of hard courts once again.
JANNIK SINNER
A first big title off hard courts being Wimbledon would be a dream come true. He would close the Slam gap with Alcaraz to just one, with the next two majors on his favorite cement, for the first time having a real shot at overtaking him in Slams this early in their rivalry.
The historic run he’s had since Beijing 2023 would continue: being the champion of three of the four Slams simultaneously would put him in some historic company. He’d most likely lock in year-end No. 1 as well, going back-to-back there and fully validating his status as the consensus best player in the world.
The rut against Carlos would be broken, and just in time for the hard courts, where you’d surely have to favor him if they meet again. And he would get arguably his greatest victory yet: stealing a Slam from his biggest rival by beating him in the final of what many believe is Carlos’s best surface.
PREDICTION
I don’t like this, and I’m not feeling well. I have two predictions in my mind written down, and either one happening wouldn’t surprise me. I’m pretty sure you have an idea what they are.
Sinner has played the better tennis here; he’s fresher, and he’s coming off the confidence of thrashing Djokovic. You could say he hasn’t been battle-tested yet, and I’d agree. But has Carlos? There are no other players on tour who can truly get either of these two battle-hardened for a match against the other.
When Carlos entered the tournament, after the match against Fognini, I said I needed to see two things from him: a clear strategy and improvement on second-serve returns, and that steady 70% rally-ball forehand. He showed both against Norrie, but then looked off again against Fritz. That wasn’t a good sign to me. I hope he somehow wins this final. I want him to win it, I can’t be objective here. But do I think he will do it? I’m doubting myself.
May we get a great match from a rivalry that promises so many great things to the whole sporting world.
Prediction: Jannik Sinner in 4 sets.
Regardless of the result, I’ll be back here after a day or two. Can’t promise the same for my other socials, haha. Enjoy the match!