ATP Match of the Year, No. 1: Carlos Alcaraz reaches God mode to win Roland Garros, but it took Jannik Sinner to push him there

This week, Steve Tignor will reveal his ATP Matches of the Year, and the TENNIS.com editors will reveal our ATP Players of the Year. The WTA editions will begin Monday, December 8.

In 2003, the Big 3—Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic—grabbed the men’s-tennis torch and proceeded to run with it faster and longer than any elite group of players had before. Finally, in 2025, over the course of a fortnight at Roland Garros, they passed it to a new generation.

The tournament began with Nadal waving good-bye to the game in a special ceremony inside his home away from home, Court Philippe Chatrier.

Twelve days later, Djokovic walked out of that same arena with a clump of its sacred clay in his hands, and said he may never be back.

Two days after that, their young successors, Carlos Alcaraz, 22, and Jannik Sinner, then 23, played their first Grand Slam final. By the time it was over, they had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were ready to pick up the torch and keep sprinting with it. If this early epic is any indication, they’ll be taking tennis fans to places we’ve never been before.

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Alcaraz’s 4-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2) win took 5 hours and 29 minutes, making it the longest final in Roland Garros history. Between them, they hit 1433 ground strokes. Sinner, the loser, won 193 points; Alcaraz, the winner, won 192. Each broke serve seven times. And each staged one improbable comeback. It ended, after all of that, with Alcaraz raising his game to a place where no one else—Sinner included—could go.

“There were a few moments of the match that, I mean, the level was insane,” Alcaraz said.

“Best match that I’ve played in my career in a Grand Slam.”

It didn’t always look like it would end up that way. For the majority of the first four sets, this final felt less like a classic contest than the coronation of a new multi-surface ATP king. And that king didn’t appear to be Alcaraz.

Late in the first set, the Spaniard got clay in his eye. While his vision quickly returned, his game didn’t. Sinner raced to a 6-4, 4-1 lead. His serve, his return, his forehand to both corners: They were all sharp. At the same time, Alcaraz was adrift. He chattered angrily with his coaches, unable to land on a successful tactic.

“His head’s gone a bit AWOL here,” John McEnroe said in the commentary booth.

Even when Alcaraz regained his concentration, it didn’t seem to matter. The second set ended with the Spaniard belting a forehand crosscourt, only to see Sinner stretch wide and snap back an even better forehand, at a sharper angle. The Italian had now won 20 straight sets at Roland Garros, and needed just one more. After he broke to start the third, it felt like he had a clear path to perfection, and the title. Alcaraz felt the same way.

“When he broke my serve at the beginning of the third set, I felt like everything was to his favor,” Alcaraz said. “I felt like everything he’s doing was going to be in.”

Sometimes glimpsing the finish line will make a player feel more confident. Just as often, it can make him feel the weight of what he’s trying to accomplish. Sinner really only made one mistake early in the third set, but against Alcaraz it was one more than he could afford.

Serving at 1-0, up 40-30, he hit a forehand that landed just wide. It was out by an inch, but that was all the defending champion needed. Alcaraz broke, then broke for the set at 5-4. The crowd, which had been waiting for him to come to life, erupted.

Sinner had blinked, but he quickly recovered. Just as Alcaraz looked ready to start a comeback, Sinner stole the initiative by going on the attack. At 3-3 in the fourth, he broke Alcaraz at love. Two games later, with Alcaraz serving at 3-5, Sinner reached 0-40, triple championship point.

Now it was Alcaraz’s turn to find his best when he had to have it. He immediately cut out the errors, and forced Sinner to beat him. Sinner couldn’t do it. He missed two forehands and a backhand on his match points, and Alcaraz held. From there, the Spaniard, like a man freed from jail, happily rampaged through a fourth-set tiebreaker, and went up an early break in the fifth.

“I just believe all the time,” Alcaraz said. “I never have doubt about myself, even though in those match points down. I thought just one point at a time.”

There was no way he could lose now, right? No way that Sinner, after missing out on those match points, had the strength to mount a comeback.

For the first nine games of the fifth, an Alcaraz win looked inevitable. But in an 11th-hour twist, the tables turned again when Alcaraz served for the match at 5-4. Now the Spaniard was tight, and the Italian was loose. Sinner went on the attack, won a point with a seemingly impossible get and winning re-drop, broke for 5-5 and held for 6-5. Considering when it happened, and the gargantuan mental effort it required, it may have been Sinner’s most impressive passage of the day.

“I tried to delete everything, every set,” Sinner said. “In Grand Slams you try to start from zero again. I was of course disappointed about the fourth set and match points and serving for the match. But again, I stayed there mentally.”

Sadly for Sinner, his finest moment would just be a prelude to an even better one for Alcaraz.

Down 5-6 in the fifth, Alcaraz fell behind 15-30 when Sinner played an immaculate half-volley from behind his body. On the next point, Sinner fired what looked to be a winning crosscourt forehand, which would have given him two more match points. Somehow, Alcaraz tracked it down, stuck out his racquet, and sliced a forehand that landed on the sideline.

Best match that I’ve played in my career in a Grand Slam. Carlos Alcaraz

Winning that point sent Alcaraz on his concluding rampage of the day. He hit a backhand pass to hold for 6-6, then won the first seven points of the deciding tiebreaker. Every shot was better than the last, and elicited a louder roar from the Chatrier crowd. He hit a forehand winner, a swing-volley winner, a backhand winner that landed on the sideline, a service winner, and, finally, a running forehand pass for the title.

Fittingly, his razor-thin victory ended up securing Alcaraz the No. 1 spot over Sinner at the end of the year. He gained 800 more points than the Italian at Roland Garros, and finished 650 points ahead of him in the final rankings.

“The real champions are made in [those] situations, when you deal with that pressure, with that situation in the best way possible,” Alcaraz said. “That’s what the real champions have done in their whole careers.”

“It’s a Grand Slam final. It’s no time to be afraid.”

After five hours and five sets, Alcaraz reached God mode. But it took Sinner to push him there. That’s what rivalries are for. The men’s-tennis torch is in safe hands with this one.