The electric rivalry between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner is just getting started

HIGHLIGHTS: Jannik Sinner ends Carlos Alcaraz's win streak in Miami semis

In the first set, Carlos Alcaraz came back from 1-4 down to win it in a tiebreaker, in 117 electrifying minutes.

In the second set, he came back from a 0-2 deficit to level the score.

In both sets, the Spanish teenager did what a sellout crowd in Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium had paid to see him do against Jannik Sinner: Light up the arena with the lethal speed of his racquet and his feet. His gobsmacking gets, his 100-m.p.h. forehands, his touch and savvy around the net, his laser-guided lobs, his ability to take an opponent’s best punch and throw something harder back in return: All of the elements of the Alcaraz experience were in effect.

Now, after a little more than two hours, he led Sinner 4-3 in the second set, and had two break points to give himself a chance to serve for the match. Sinner had fought hard and played well, and added plenty of his own electricity to the evening, but he seemed destined to come out second-best against Alcaraz, just as he had in the semifinals in Indian Wells two weeks earlier.

Sinner saved the first break point with a service winner. On the second one, Alcaraz had a good look at a crosscourt forehand…and overhit it wide. Normally, we say that one miss from an opponent is all it takes for a No. 1 player like Alcaraz to turn a match around. On this night, though, it was the lower-ranked Sinner who made the most of his opportunity. From 3-4 down in the second set, the Italian lost just two more games, and walked away with an unlikely but well-earned 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-2 victory. On Sunday, he’ll play his first Masters 1000 final since he finished as the runner-up in Miami two years ago.

“It means a lot. We both played a very high level of tennis again,” said Sinner, who lost one of the best matches of 2022 to Alcaraz at the US Open.

Hang around long enough and good things can happen—or bad things can happen to your opponent. In this case, Alcaraz cramped at the start of the third set. He went down an early break again, but this time he couldn’t catch up. By the middle of the set, he had begun to recover physically, but Sinner had the lead and wasn’t going to be denied. He finished with more aces (8 to 5), more winners (27 to 22), more net approaches (25 to 19) and a higher percentage of break pints converted (6 of 12).

“In the third set I saw him struggle a little bit for a couple of games, so I tried to push there,” Sinner said. “I just tried my best.”

Alcaraz was his usual, whirlingly explosive self. At times it seemed impossible for Sinner to hit a ball past him. In the first set, the two played one of the points of the year; they went side-to-side and up-and-back-and-up again, until Sinner finally found a tiny bit of space to thread a passing shot through for a winner:

When it was over, Alcaraz was flat on the court; when he got up, he had a smile of appreciation on his face. The crowd, which included NBAers Jimmy Butler and Luka Doncic, was as vocal and engaged as any you’ll find at Flushing Meadows in September.

Yet Sinner knew that if he could keep it close, Alcaraz’s brilliance could turn, for just long enough, to recklessness. The forehands could misfire, the nerves could creep in, and he might not adjust and rein his swings in. That’s what happened late in the second set, and Sinner was there to take advantage.

For the better part of two hours, it looked like this match would cement Alcaraz’s superiority over Sinner. Despite all of the Italian’s improvements, he couldn’t match the Spaniard’s graceful proficiency in every part of the court. In the end, though, this match instead cemented Alcaraz-Sinner as a real rivalry. They’ve now split their six meetings evenly, and, at 21 and 19, they’re just getting started.

“We both tried to play very aggressive tennis and today it went my way,” Sinner said. “So I’m very happy.”