Key events
Sinner 2-6 4-2 Alcaraz* There’s something profoundly moving about two young people captivating the world with their brilliance; in the sense that by watching them, we’re participating in art and history at the same time. At 15-0, Alcaraz pats a volley wide, but he then tickles a beauty over the net for 30-15; Spike Lee loves it, and there’s little greater praise than that. From there, the game is quickly closed out, and might we be reaching the surprisingly elusive stage of both players playing well at the same time?
*Sinner 2-6 4-1 Alcaraz Sinner opens the game with a double, but at 40-15 thuds a forehand into the net and faces stress. But he knew if he kept calm, he’d warm as Alcaraz cooled and that’s exactly what’s happening: to secure the game, he bangs away from the back, and there’s been a change in his body language over the last 15 minutes or so.
“At 1-1 in the second,” returns wa Bryan.
Sinner 2-6 3-1 Alcaraz* Alcaraz misses a forehand for 0-15, something for Sinner to build on … and he does, monstering a forehand return, laying a drop, and cleaning up at net. He raises his arm, a signal that he feels part of this match now, then Alcaraz goes long on the backhand and the champ has his first break points of the match! And he only needs one, a forehand to feet reversing momentum in the rally before a forehand pass seals the deal! It is scientifically, biologically impossible for these two not to deliver us a classic.
*Sinner 2-6 2-1 Alcaraz A backhand slice then a backhand down the line help Alcaraz make 0-15, but he’s then outhit from the back for 15-all. An ace out wide follows, then a wrong-footing forehand, and is Sinner growing into this? He holds comfortably, and it feels like we’re building to the match’s next juncture-point.
Sinner 2-6 1-1 Alcaraz* Thirteen service-points in a row for Alcaraz, who holds to love. Sinner is hanging in there, hoping his level drops.
“There are still significant queues of spectators waiting to get inside Ashe, returns wor Bryan. The get-in-the-door price for a single ticket on the resale market today was about $600.”
*Sinner 2-6 1-0 Alcaraz “A lot of boos,” reports Laura Robson on the crowd reaction to a shot of Trump. Meantime, Sinner seeks to get himself going but at 30-15, a netted forehand is followed by a double, and Alcaraz will be inhaling the deep stench of opportunity. All the more so when a cunning forehand switches momentum in the next rally, and at 30-40, Sinner must find something because if he doesn’t the match might just disappear before he’s participated in it. And he does, a brave second serve helping him to deuce before a crucial hold is secured.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so ambivalent about watching a sporting event before, writes Jonathan Gresty. “Here we have two young wizards performing near miracles of dexterity and acrobatics and in their presence is pretty much the biggest lump of odiousness in the free world wearing his horrible suit (and equally horrible tie) basically being enabled by the whole sporting community to lord it over us all by sitting there in all his bloated pomp and vanity.”
It’s a state of affairs, isn’t it. Sport is, I’m afraid a victim of its own success, so brilliant that the worst people in the world are eager to co-opt it, though the supine submission of its leaders – not restricted to tennis or to today – is an unnecessary blight on our civilisation.
Carlos Alcaraz takes the first set against Jannik Sinner 6-2
*Sinner 2-6 Alcaraz More forehand wizardry makes 30-0, then Alcaraz comes in and spreads, almost like he’s offering Sinner out; the attempted pass hits the net. And from there, an unreturned serve secures a domineering 6-2 set; it’s not humanly possible to play much better than that.
“He’s the better tennis player,” is Coach Calv’s summation of what we’ve seen so far. “Has more of everything other than straight-line power.”
And he’s plenty of that – especially today. His forehand has been immaculate, his use of it so intelligent.
*Sinner 2-5 Alcaraz Goodness, at 15-all, Alcaraz stops in the point, digging out a fine pass on the stretch from behind his arse. But when the ball sits up, you expect Sinner to stick it away, only he swats wide and again, is under pressure … all the more so when Alcaraz ups pace on the forehand, flat and close to the baseline. At 15-40, he has two break, almost set points, and a second serve at which he can go. Unusually, he tamely flaps into the net but, when Sinner comes it his attempted pass is there for the putaway volley … but the champ nets! He’s not at it here, and after change of ends, Alcaraz will serve for a dominant first set, his forehand controlling the match.
Sinner 2-4 Alcaraz* Alcaraz is so burly, but his hands are so deft; what a combination. And at 30-0, with Sinner well in the point, he shows us the same again, a forehand spinning cross-court into the corner; a service-winner follows. Sometimes, he looks a little lost in the supermarket, slightly unsure what to choose given the multitude of options, but so far today he’s in perfect control of himself.
*Sinner 2-3 Alcaraz At 0-15, Alcaraz comes in, contorts, and takes a volley off his tootsies for a clean winner, racket pointed down, Edberg-style, to break the sideline; that is beautiful. Sinner responds with a big serve, then punishes a forehand to the corner to restore parity, and from there he secures his hold. He’s second-best for now, but he’s still playing pretty well.
I was thinking of Rybakina as well,” says Cynthia Meredith, “but you make a valid point about her consistency. I’d also add 18-year-old Mirra Andreeva based on her talent level and commitment to improving her game, but if you’re literally speaking of slam wins in the next few years, Andreeva might still be a bit young.”
I agree. I love Andreeva – not just her talent but her attitude – and take very seriously the opinion of Conchita Martinez, her coach, who thinks she’s ready. But I can’t see that it’s imminent, though I can see her beating the top players at majors.
Sinner 1-3 Alcaraz* Alcaraz has started this match like a demon and already, every point is an occasion, a story in and of itself. And the first of his service-game is seized by Sinner, nailing a return, approaching, and putting away the overhead. The standard is absolutely stratospheric, even more so than in their previous finals – it feels like both men are now settled into their status, able to relax into their natural selves from the off. Alcaraz makes 40-15 but then Sinner sends him to the corner, slides into a volley, and gives himself a sniff. But when the drop comes next point, his lob sails long, and that’s another hold secured.
*Sinner 1-2 Alcaraz At 30-15, Sinner goes hard at the Alcaraz forehand; the Spaniard defends well, adding a bit of loop to take pace off, then ups it when he’s ready and again, the champ must serve with a bit of pressure. This time, though, he closes out well enough though, at 40-30, he’ll have swallowed his gizzard when a forehand pass burned by him at the net; it fell long, and the champ is on the board.
Sinner 0-2 Alcaraz* A much quicker game, Alcaraz holding to 15 and, in the process, unfurling a wrong-footing forehand to reach 40, then confirming the consolidation with a beautiful drop.
“It’s crazy out here,” advises our man on the ground, Bryan Armen Graham.
L’état c’est lui.
*Sinner 0-1 Alcaraz (*denotes server) We’ve been waiting a while – since the Wimbledon final finished, really – but we’re good to go now, and Sinner races to 30-0. But Alcaraz then hooks a terrific forehand on to the line, not a winner but enough to win the point, then a backhand swatted wide gives him 30-all. A bit of pressure for Sinner and when offered a second serve, Alcaraz doesn’t need asking twice, a flat, fast return too good. So, break-point down, Sinner of course ups pace on delivery – the stones that takes – makes deuce then, after 13 shots of corner-to-corner jousting, advantage. These two are so well matched it’s ridiculous – like they’ve been intelligently designed to bestow upon us the greatest tennis there is – and when Sinner overhits a backhand down the line, we’re back to deuce, the first game threatening to become an epic, never mind the contest itself. And have a look! Sinner reclaims the ad via ace, then Alcaraz unleashes on forehand, annihilating from well behind the baseline until his opponent can’t take any more. Already, this is affirming, exhilarating stuff, and when Sinner nets a forehand he must face a second break point. Ooooh, and we see Alcaraz’s backhand slice for the first time, zoning low over the net and dipping; the champ can’t respond, and that’s that break! It feels absurd to rhapsodise a mere game, but what else can we do? These lads together are the truth.
Righto, Alcaraz won the toss and opted to receive. Ready … play.
There are so many people still outside, unable to use the tickets for which they’ve paid. It’s a complete disgrace, and Martina is the only pundit with the minerals and conscience to say so.
“Gotta wonder if a lot of people attending who wouldn’t have booed before will now after being stuck in that line instead of the seats they paid a lot for,” wonders Zach Neeley.
And what a damning indictment of our world that’d be.
Alcaraz looks properly dialled-in. I wonder if that’s to his advantage, or if he plays better when feeling freer and this is the pressure getting big on him.
“I’d say Rybakina is in the mix, maybe Paolini,” emails Mark Tran responding to my point about women’s tennis. “Enjoy the show. I’ll be relying on your commentary as I haven’t got TV coverage. I wonder if Sinner can endure physically if it goes to five.”
I’d be surprised – but delighted – if Paolini wins one. Rybakina is a maybe, as she can beat anyone, but I’m not sure she can win enough big matches consecutively unless her consistency improves.
Here come our players, Alcaraz in pink and mauve, Sinner in all rust. I’ve not a clue why.
“Current state of affairs outside,” returns oor Bryan. “USTA should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this.”
The arena is half-empty, but it’s anthem time.
I said this earlier in the competition, but Alcaraz looks like he should be in the keep-fit class at the start of Back to the Future – or maybe he’s off to the Shore once this is done.
Alcaraz is stretching, headphones on; Sinner is chasing a teammate around bikes in the gym, chucking a ball about. They’re learning from each other, but also, Sinner is probably more relaxed: he can afford to lose this but Alcaraz really must win, and for all the amiable bonhomie, he remains a killer.
Credit where it’s due: Ryan Harrison has been a tremendous addition to the Sky commentary team. For a long time, tennis has lagged behind other sports in terms of in-depth analysis, but the BBC improved this Wimbledon with more detailed breakdowns from Todd Woodbridge, and Harrison is doing the same. It’s great to see.
“For the final to be postponed because of this is insane,” advises Martina. Well said, Legend.
In the meantime, there’ll be plenty of people here for the tennis and who’ve paid for their ticket who’ll miss the start, in order to accommodate someone who isn’t and who hasn’t. It is, I’m afraid, a complete nonsense.
“Going into this final,” begins Gavriella Epstein-Lightman, “Alcaraz and Sinner’s roles are reversed. It is Alcaraz who has been ruthlessly efficient, not dropping a set, whereas Sinner has dropped two sets.
Alcaraz has also been serving better than Sinner this tournament, getting 7% more first serves in than Sinner, with 5% more unreturned serves.
This is in contrast to the situation before the Roland Garros final this year: Alcaraz had dropped four sets whilst Sinner had largely eased through, unflappable as per usual. We know how that final went.
So how far is recent form in the tournament a predictor of performance in the final?”
I’d say both have played so well it’s hard to look at their route to this point and find anything telling other than Sinner’s stomach knack – if it’s still bothering him. It’s also worth noting that he was bothered by Bublik recently, but when they met round three, he binned him 1, 1 and 1. As Calv said below, this match will probably be decided by which of the two play better, not any tactical tweak, and both are in such good nick we can’t possibly predict which it’ll be.
The queues outside are colossal; our players are scheduled to walk out at 37 minutes past the hour, but I’d not be surprised if that’s pushed back again. Still, in return we get to see the continuing theft of democracy in real time, so.
With men’s tennis settled into a pattern, there’s an interesting contrast to be found in the women’s game. For the last decade and a bit, it’s been the least predictable sport in the world, all manner of random winning majors, but it now feels like we’re on the verge of a new era: Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova and Naomi Osaka – maybe Karolina Muchová too, if she stays fit – appear to be settling at the top. You never know, but I’d suggest it’ll be a while before anyone but them wins a slam, and if the latter three names can get in amongst it, we might soon be talking about one of the great eras.
One of the many things I love about the Sincaraz rivalry is what sound lads they clearly are and, from which flows, how well they get on with each other. I can’t lie, I tend to like a bit of needle in my sport – I found, for example, Klopp-Guardiola a bit bloodless for my taste.
But when these two get together it feels like a celebration of what’s best about humanity, so the two of them being both mates and menschen fits beautifully. And, let’s be real, we need that example and inspiration more than ever.
More from Bryan.
Bryan Armen Graham
An hour before Sunday’s US Open men’s final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, the boardwalk from the Mets-Willets Point subway to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center was quiet, punctuated only by bursts of fans spilling out of the No 7 train every few minutes.
Among them stood Emma Kaplan, a 33-year-old executive assistant from Brooklyn, distributing flyers that read “The Fall of the Trump Fascist Regime.” She was joined by three members of RefuseFascism.org, one hoisting a poster that declared “GAME, SET, MATCH! NOV 5, FLOOD DC. TRUMP MUST GO!”; another’s sign demanded the shutdown of ICE and “the whole Trump fascist regime.”
As waves of spectators streamed past, a heavy security presence shadowed the scene – NYPD, Parks Department officers, Homeland Security agents and the Secret Service. Some fans nodded quietly in approval. Others made their opposition clear.
“Oh my bad, I voted for him,” one man muttered.
“Maga! Make America great again!” shouted another, a 22-year-old from Long Island who said he would happily back Trump again.
Kaplan brushed off the jeers.
“Trump has historically been booed here,” she told me. “He should be booed everywhere he goes. And on November 5 we’re calling for millions of people to come to Washington DC. They might try to silence our boos, but they can’t silence our rage.”
Asked what she’d say directly to Trump, Kaplan didn’t hesitate: “Get the hell out of Chicago. Stay out of New York, get out of LA and get out of the fucking White House.”
So far, she said, reactions had been mixed. “We just got out here … our audience really is everybody who hates Trump, [for them] to not be silent right now.” She added that she felt safe and had not been approached by security.
There they are, the lads
The collab we didn’t know we needed:
“Every breath you take, every move you make.”
“It wasn’t me.”
On account of Trump’s attendance, our start is delayed until 7.30pm BST
In an entirely normal turn of events, broadcasters have been told to censor any protests or negative reactions.
There’s are major queues outside Arthur Ashe, as Donald Trump is taking a break from golf to take in a bit of tennis and there’s more security than usual. Demagogues do sure love themselves some sport.
The only thing individual sport loves more than a dominant champion is a dominant rivalry. If Sinner wins here, though, we’ll be forced to wonder if, though Alcaraz is going away from the pack, he’s going away from Alcaraz.
On the same topic, here’s Calvin Betton, our resident coach. “Nothing at all to add really since Wimbledon. Same stuff. They’ll both blast away, whoever plays better will win. One of them will try a drop shot or a serve and volley and people will get excited that it’s a tactical move. It’s not.”
Where is the match? On a hard court, if Sinner can get on top of the bounce, he’s hard to stop because his groundstrokes are so reliable and so true. He has, though, had trouble against players who unleash on the forehand – Dimitrov, Bublik – but are canny on the back, their slicing forcing him to dig out responses.
Sinner, meanwhile, will look to put Alcaraz under constant pressure, standing on the baseline while cramping him for room and time. If his second serve is firing, it’ll take something serious to deny him.
Also going on:
Preamble
Yes yes y’all, and welcome to the US Open 2025 – day 15!
It feels like we’ve been here before, doesn’t it? For the third grand slam in a row and for the first time ever in an open-era calendar year, the same players meet to decide which of them takes home the big pot, just as we knew they would. We invite sport into our lives because we don’t know what’s going to happen, except in men’s tennis we now know exactly what’s going to happen: Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz will beat whoever is put in front of them, handily. There is no sign whatsoever that this will stop being the case anytime in the next decade.
But though it might feel like we’ve been here before, verily we have not. Each time these two play, they grow, and each time they play each other they’re telling us a new story, a fresh mesh of styles and characters demanding we conceive of them and ourselves differently.
The pair are easy to characterise. Sinner is even, flowing, and predictable, doing things you can’t believe but can predict: he picks the right shot even if it’s the hardest shot, then executes with style and poise that is perfect. Alcaraz, on the other hand, is capricious, extravagant and visionary, doing things you can neither predict nor believe: technically he is impure but mentally he is unique, conjuring angles and trajectories geometry has yet to discover, perfect because of his imperfections.
In individual sport, players come and go, so to sustain us, we need them to stand for something, and we will, all of us, have a favourite in the fight: the one who is closer to expressing who we are or, if we’re honest with ourselves, who we’d like to be. The reality, though, is a little more nuanced. Unlike, say, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, these two aren’t sticking to their given identity partly to spite the other, nor are they, like, say, Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker, continuing to do what they do in the belief that if they do it well, it will be enough. Rather they are studying each other and, more particularly, studying themselves in the light of each other, rethinking and remodelling as they go. So Sinner is now fitter and more daring, while Alcaraz is less impetuous and error-prone; their rivalry is not a series but a serial, with character driving plot not the other way around.
There’ s a notion that Sinner’s Wimbledon win evidenced him moving clear – a hard court suits his organised power-game, just as the variable, lower bounce on grass and clay works better for Alcaraz, so if he’s winning on one of his less natural surfaces, he is likely to be impregnable on the one that seems made for him. On the other hand, Alcaraz has developed a new consistency which, when added to his artistic gifts and preternatural timing, means that if he plays close to his best, he’s close to unbeatable.
Which is to say though previously we knew what was going to happen, presently we’ve not a clue what’s going to happen. It’s time to settle in and find out.
Play: 2pm local, 7pm BST
