By Alex P. Vidal
“To be a tennis champion, you have to be inflexible. You have to be stubborn. You have to be arrogant. You have to be selfish and self-absorbed. Kind of tunnel vision almost.” — Chris Evert
CARLOS Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner aren’t politicians and presidential wanna-bes.
They aren’t magicians or Hollywood stars and astronauts stranded in space station, and yet they made millions of sports fans, including this writer, froze in excitement and awe.
Those who watched the thrilling 2025 French Open men’s final June 8, probably one of the most absurd spectacles tennis has ever witnessed, chances are they would fall or have already fallen in love with tennis; and they will even be enamored with the sport even more.
Like millions of fans from all over the world, I watched the great championship from the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York; I mean from start to finish—all those magical and nerve-tingling five hours that blasted off past nine o’clock in the morning until three o’clock in the afternoon U.S. eastern time.
It’s impossible not to fall in love with tennis, a racket sport played on a rectangular court by either two or four players, after watching Alcaraz spectacularly snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Nobody has thrived under those circumstances like Alcaraz, whose ability to find order after his game was in total disarray seconds earlier was so remarkable.
Alcaraz aware of his quality and believed his potential was boundless as he tackled those tough moments with the full belief he could always find a path to victory regardless of the obstacle before him.
My heart, of course, goes out to the 23-year-old Italian world No. 1 Sinner, who fought back tears while speaking during the awarding ceremony.
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“I’m still happy to be part of this match. I think it was a very, very high-level match, (it) was long, and it happens. We saw it in the past with other players, and today it happened to me. So, we try to delete it somehow and take the positive and keep going,” sobbed Sinner, who is best remembered in the failed bid to snatch the 2025 French Open title for his words, “it’s easier to play than talk.”
Both 22-year-old Alcaraz, a Spaniard fm Murcia, and Sinner crushed groundstrokes at each other on the iconic red clay of Roland Garros and displayed pinpoint precision with deft drop shots and volleys and chased down each shot with a fierce determination.
Improbably coming back from two sets down for the first time and saving three championship points, Alcaraz eventually won 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(3), 7-6(2). Sinner winning that final-set championship tiebreak wouldn’t have made the match any less remarkable.
UK-based newspaper The Guardian calls Alcaraz’s win as “ridiculous” but acknowledging the “frenzied last few games of the 2025 French Open final will go down as one of the greatest stretches of play in grand slam history.”
“In the end,” The Guardian emphasized, “the suffocating pressure imposed by Sinner inspired Alcaraz to elevate his own level to wondrous heights.”
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The future of tennis’ newest rivalry will be the subject of much debate between now and the start of Wimbledon at the end of the month, but it seems a fairly safe bet that Alcaraz and Sinner – who have now won the last six grand slams between them – will be battling it out at the top for a long time to come, according to CNN analyst Matias Grez.
Alcaraz found it hard to explain what it was like playing in a match of that standard, describing it as “amazing.”
“To put it into words is really difficult,” he told Eurosport’s Lesly Boitrelle and Alex Corretja. “Being two sets to love down against the No. 1 in the world, the level Jannik was playing at was unbelievable.
“It’s my first time coming back from two sets to love down. Honestly, I just poured my heart into it, I just tried to keep going, not think about the result and just play my best tennis in the third and fourth, and then the fifth.
“The fifth set was just not giving up, it was just fighting and thinking point after point, and at the end of the fifth I was just playing with heart. Honestly, I don’t know what I did to win this match. I’m really, really happy and proud with how I dealt with everything today.”
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.)
