Opinion Why Alcaraz vs Sinner is tennis’s most fascinating rivalry today

Sinner keeps us at a slight distance. Remarkably, it seems he keeps himself too at a distance with his masterful control over his emotions.

A synopsis of their games has got the tennis world to draw this conclusion: Alcaraz, who has been inconsistent in the past, has to play perfect tennis to beat Sinner. Sinner, who has been “predictable” in the past, has to either wait to pounce on the Alcaraz inconsistency or get beyond his comfort zone. Be that as may be, what’s the future of this great rivalry?

It’s what Sinner and Alcaraz said minutes after the US Open final that promises exciting times ahead. Sinner had not only absorbed the defeat but already knew what he needs to do: “I’m gonna… trying (sic) to do some changes, trying to be a bit more unpredictable as a player and because I think that’s what I have to do.”

Alcaraz too hit the nail on the head: “The consistency of my level during the whole tournament has been really, really high, which I’m really proud of, because it’s something that I’ve been working on…”

That self-awareness and deep-rooted desire to do what’s needed to improve set these two apart from the rest.

Sometime back, Sinner’s first tutor Riccardo Piatti, who coached him from the age of 13 to 20, had distilled the essence of his former student: “A competitive arrogance bordering on ruthlessness (“Un arroganza agonistica rasente alla cattiveria”). Piatti had also introduced a mind coach Riccardo Ceccarelli to Sinner. Ceccarelli helped Sinner build his “mentality monster”, bringing decades of science-based mental training methods that he had deployed during his training sessions in Formula 1.

The thing that Ceccarelli aims for and that is seen amply in Sinner is an “economic brain”. “What does it mean to have an economic brain? It means that you are not affected too much by emotion, doubt, anxiety, which means overthinking, high consumption, and tension,” Ceccarelli said. In a chat with Carole Bouchard’s Tennis Sweet Spot, the good doctor talked about one specific exercise of playing table tennis. “They switch off lights, play table tennis against a shooting ball… trying to reach a high level of performance, but with the feedback of how much you activate the body and the brain being in front of you. So you get to learn to be fast and precise, but with the muscle relaxed and the mind free…”

It’s not a surprise then that Sinner seems a prototype for a way of playing that people are terming cyborg-ish. “Jannik is now a leader of himself, and he knows what he needs. So, this is our goal. I have to help you develop a deep self-awareness. You need to know yourself in your strong points and in your weak points, in an honest way, because sometimes we try to hide… We have to focus on finding the weaker points, and the more we find, the better chance we have,” Ceccarelli says.

Perhaps that’s why Sinner seems to have the ability to bounce back. He has been constantly improving his game from serve to forehand. Just check the whip he unleashes on that forehand for starters: The racket actually faces behind before he whips up and over to pummel that ball.

Or, check Alcaraz’s tweaked backhand that Andre Agassi gushed over a few months ago. He yanks the racket back with a straight right arm, and after an almost unnatural pause, rams it in the slot. Agassi had talked about its effect on the opponents. “They don’t know if he’s going to hold, pull it across…,” he told the American network TNT. “The guy can go either direction with it because, in tennis, power and control come from time spent on racket with the ball.”

Sincaraz, as the tennis world calls them now, sweat on these nuances and are constantly updating themselves. One might show his emotion on court, the other might seem cold and calculating, but that’s just their on-court personalities. In the end, both care — and that’s the most human trait out there.
sriram.veera@expressindia.com