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Journalism of Courage
The post-US Open period can be the most apathetic on the tennis calendar. The Grand Slam season is closed, winter falls over the major tennis destinations, and monotonous one-dimensional tournaments in indoor arenas take over. It was during this period in 2023 that Jannik Sinner had taken his most significant steps towards becoming a world-beater. He underwent a transformation in mind, body and technique, reaching the final of the year-end ATP Finals and then spurring Italy onto a Davis Cup triumph. It not only pencilled in Sinner’s place among the best in the world, but also marked his best surface: the fast-playing indoor hard courts.
Sinner began a winning run on these courts that is yet to be broken, going into 31 consecutive matches and almost two years, after he defeated arch-rival Carlos Alcaraz 7-6(4), 7-5 to win a second successive ATP Finals title on Sunday. He became only the ninth male player to win consecutive year-end Finals title, and the only one to do so without dropping a set. It put a bow on his year that may well be even more creditable than his dominant 2024 season, given his three-month-long doping suspension between February and May.
More importantly, however, Sunday’s victory established some much-needed parity in what has quickly become the defining rivalry of a new era in the men’s game. Since Wimbledon 2024, going back to August last year, Sinner has won 85 matches and lost only two, against players not named Carlos Alcaraz. Against the Spaniard, his record is 2-7 in that time, and his overall head-to-head has now marginally improved to 6-10.
This confidence-boosting victory over his rival was born, once again, through Sinner’s relentlessness and marked improvements in the winter. After Alcaraz beat him in four sets in the US Open final, Sinner had been hugely complimentary of the refinements his rival had made to his game over the summer and felt that he needed to go up another level to match him.
Among the improvements were the more boring, intricate details, like a subtly reworked serving motion to ensure more reliability on the first serve after that stroke had deserted him during the fortnight in New York. But Sinner’s elastic baseline play, effective as it may be, still needed variety and guile. He still needs to inject more unpredictability in the patterns of play on the most important points, an area where Alcaraz has held a decisive edge over him in their tight recent encounters.
That’s where Sinner came up trumps in the big moments in Turin. He thundered down big serves and even served-and-volleyed to get himself out of trouble and force a first-set tiebreak, in which he was by far the better player: not by simply bashing from the baseline but by scrambling Alcaraz’s rhythm from the back of the court, adding net forays and drop shots and lobs to his groundstrokes.
And in another compelling role reversal, it would be Alcaraz, facing a one-set deficit and discomfort in his left hamstring, who would blink under the pressure of hostility from the crowd. The Spaniard’s early success, flashy game and easy charisma have always made him the crowd favourite over Sinner, but not on the Italian’s home turf. Turin is home to Italy’s most successful and aggressively supported football team – Juventus – where the locals are full of pride and do not have the detached cosmopolitanism of bigger cities like Rome and Milan. The fans resolutely stood behind their man and jeered the opponent into submission. As cheers of ‘Ole, Ole’ went around the Inalpi Arena every time Alcaraz made an error, it would be his mistakes late into the match that turned his lead — he took an early break in the second set — into a straight-sets defeat.
Alcaraz’s game plan on Sunday was similar to that of New York. It stands to reason: few can match his power and pace. With his improved rally tolerance and excellent returning, he has made Sinner pay in the past. But the difference here proved to be the Italian’s excellence on this particular surface.
Sinner’s metronomic, destructive game is the most potent on hard courts. It neither has the high bounce of clay nor the low skid of grass; without variance in ball speed, spin or height, they fall perfectly into his striking zone where he can relentlessly unload his heavy strokes. That’s why his weapons are even more magnified on the quicker indoor courts, where his flatter groundstrokes, unleashed with only subtle spin, arrive on the opponent’s racket with the maximum weight possible.
On the stroke of victory, Sinner essayed his natural feel for the surface. Under pressure while serving to stay in the match, Alcaraz sent a wicked serve wide from the ad-court, catching Sinner off-guard. The Italian made a last-minute adjustment to lean his left hip sideways and immediately change direction — the kind of thing that cannot be planned but is pure instinct — and leathered a backhand return down-the-line for a winner. Alcaraz looked at his box in recognition of being outplayed. Two points later, Sinner had the trophy.
