Skilled Coco Gough, Emma Navarro, and Jessica Pagra of Madison Keys
Tennis player Jessica Pegra discusses how wonderful it is for other great American women in tennis to dominate the sport.
Seriously sports
So, tennis fans, did you like another decade or so? that?
The so-called Big Three era book can be officially closed after the end of the French Open Men’s Finals on Sunday (Carlos Alcaraz, whose five-hour, 29-minute epic published the trophy for the second year in a row).
There’s a new game in town. And tennis is as spectacular as we’ve seen before.
Yes, the unlikely comeback of Alcaraz, who defeated Jannik Sinner 4-6, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), and 7-6 (10-2), is the story of the day. Not only did Alkaraz win his fifth Grand Slam title in just a month in his 22nd year of his life, but it was a ridiculous achievement in itself, and he did it by summoning the competitive aura that only the greatest of all time has.
He is already a legend. And it may have been the biggest match in the history of the sport.
But the biggest part of Sunday’s match is that it’s not the end of the story. In many ways, it’s just the beginning.
The first slam final between Alkaraz and the sinner not only surpassed all possible expectations, but also set a whole new story for the sport.
With Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in retirement, it is likely that Novak Djokovic would have followed in next year or two – there were deep concerns about coming next after a 1½ fight between the three bests to hold the racket without a doubt.
Now we know definitively. Tennis is in the safest hands. And, except for something unexpected, these two epic athletes are about to fight in the Grand Slam Finals for years to come.
If you managed to see everything, or just the last couple set, it was easy to understand why it could be such an appetite-inducing possibility.
Let’s start with the level of play. In short, it’s spectacular.
Thinner and Alkaraz are each individually elite and combined to win the final six Grand Slam titles, but the greatness they were able to bring out from each other is unique. We played two matches that we could think of among the best in the history of the sport, both stylistically and tactically, in terms of the high standards that took a ball strike, durability and the high level of a single point.
When they played the US Open Quarter Final deep into the night of 2022, Alcaraz appeared five hours or 15 minutes later, indicating the potential for a friendly rivalry between two generations of talent that dated back to childhood. It has been widely considered the best match of the decade, not only because of the length of the match, but also because of the drama and the quality they placed on the line.
It only took three years to surpass that standard.
It leads to the second element of this ongoing story.
What Alkaraz needs to win that match – to defeat the sinners on this particular day – was a sustained effort that most players in history could manage. Maybe Djokovic. Probably Nadal. perhaps.
Because all the greatest of all time returned from two sets and despite saving match points on their way to the Grand Slam title, few people had little help from their opponents. Certainly, there may be one or two shots or two that hopefully thinner will return after not converting three match points in the fourth set. But most of the time, from that point onwards until the final winner comes out of Alcaraz’s racket, it was mainly about his greatness and relentless shotmaking.
Even in the fifth set, the sinner gets tired faster than his opponent, so he erases the early breaks of Alkaraz’s serve and summons enough energy to send matches to the final tiebreak.
The sinner did not lose this match. Alcaraz rose from the clay and stole it.
It can be debated where this final ranks when considering all intangible assets during the 2008 Wimbledon final between Nadal and Federer, and the 1980 Wimbledon Final between John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg. But what if we’re talking about the quality of tennis played by two men just over that time? It would be hard to say there was a better match.
If the world was watching Sunday, it had to love what it saw.
And when I realized what was ahead between them (more finals, more trophies, more history), this felt like a time-marking moment.
One chapter of tennis closes and another begins. And it will be as interesting as what we saw.