Sinner’s Wimbledon purge and its effect on his rivalry with Alcaraz

For all of Carlos Alcaraz’s brilliance, big-match temperament and high skill, it is Jannik Sinner who currently holds three of the four Grand Slam titles, and came within a whisker of the other at Roland-Garros last month.

In a parallel universe, the World No. 1 would have held all four Slams at once, making him the first man since Rod Laver and Novak Djokovic to do so in the Open Era.

Hindsight, of course, is 20/20, but this is just to show how good the Italian has been. Starting from his first Major triumph at the 2024 Australian Open he has by far been the best player, with a stupendous win-loss record of 99-9.

And the 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory over two-time defending champion Alcaraz in Sunday’s Wimbledon final, that snapped a run of five straight defeats to the Spaniard including the five-set reverse at French Open from being three championship points up, is surely the acme.

“This is the part where I’m the proudest because it really has not been easy,” Sinner said about his bounce back after Paris. “But things can happen. If you lose a Grand Slam final that way, it’s much better than when someone kills [thrashes] you.”

“I said after Roland-Garros that it’s not the time to put myself down because another Slam is coming up, and I did great.”

Darren Cahill, his coach, said that the practice week ahead of Wimbledon was the “best we’ve ever had with him as far as attitude.” Sinner also had a big slice of luck when Grigor Dimitrov retired from two sets up in their fourth-round match with an injury.

“We always had faith that he was going to get himself out of that match,” insisted Cahill. “But yes, he caught a break. Nobody goes through a tournament without a hiccup, Everybody has a story in a Grand Slam. Maybe this was going to be his story.”

What Sinner’s performance does is that it moves the needle in his era-defining rivalry with Alcaraz. Hands down the best player on hard courts – he has two Australian Opens and one US Open – the 23-year-old is now proving the World No. 2’s equal even on clay and grass.

“I knew that I could play well here [Wimbledon] because of my groundstrokes,” said Sinner. “They’re quite flat, and the ball goes through. On clay, the physical shape was not there. But I played five-and-a-half hours against Carlos [French Open] and it was a good move forward.”

As to the next trajectory of this match-up, it depends on how Alcaraz responds. It is similar to the situation the World No. 2 found himself in after losing to Djokovic in the Paris Olympics gold-medal match barely a month after outwitting the Serb in the Wimbledon final.

“It was really, really hard to accept that moment [in the Olympics],” Alcaraz said on Sunday. “But in the last year, I have learned. I accept everything that is coming. I just lost a Grand Slam final, but I am really proud about being in a final. I want to keep the good moments and move forward.”