Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s ninth meeting started slowly, but they gave us what we wanted in the end

It was fun in the end.

By now a match between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner comes with towering expectations. Fans want full-throttle rallies, from one corner of the court to the other, for many sets and many hours. We’ve spent the last two decades getting those things from Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, and we’re hoping the young Spaniard and Italian can continue that tradition. It may be a lot to ask of a 22-year-old and a 21-year-old, but so far they’ve mostly lived up to the stratospheric standards of their elders.

Coming into their match on Friday, they had split their eight previous meetings. Their ninth was the most highly-anticipated yet. This was the first time they had played a Grand Slam semifinal, and the first time they’d played on that most tension-filled of tennis stages, Court Philippe Chatrier.

Was it the extra pressure in the arena? Was it the surface, which slowed their missiles down by a fraction of a second? Was it the weather, which was warmer and sunnier than it had been in Paris over the last two weeks? Was it the cramps that both of them felt and feared? Whatever the reason, or reasons, this edition of Sinner vs. Alcaraz took a long time—three hours, to be exact—to take flight in the way we had hoped.

The first four sets swung wildly back and forth. Neither man could sustain his momentum or consistency for long, and there wasn’t any period when both were playing well at the same time. There were spectacular winners, but there were also long lulls between them.

Sinner dominated the first set. By the time Alcaraz was down two breaks, he was uncharacteristically rattled. The normally polite superstar spent two changeovers railing at the chair umpire about how his ice towels hadn’t been brought to him fast enough.

In the second set, it was Sinner’s turn to stumble. Up an early break, he double faulted, missed a routine forehand and was broken. From there, his intensity and aggression inexplicably evaporated. Alcaraz, meanwhile, calmed down and began to show off some of his trademark weapons—the drop, the lob, the hooking crosscourt forehand, the bolo-style fist-pump.

In the third set, things looked like they were going to get much worse for Sinner. Serving at 2-2, he began to cramp in his right hand. What we didn’t know at the time was that Alcaraz was also cramping. He let Sinner escape with a hold after 12 minutes, and then with the third set.

By the time the fourth started, no one had a clue where this match would go next. As the score stayed even—1-1, 2-2, 3-3—and the finish line grew closer, their level of play finally rose together. The missiles started to fly, and find their targets.

At 3-3, Alcaraz hit a backhand pass, a drop-shot winner, and a forehand pass at full stretch. At 3-4, Sinner hit a forehand winner and a drop shot winner. At 4-4, Alcaraz hit two forehand winners.

In the end, though, the set and ultimately the match were decided by the simplest of miscues. Serving at 4-5, 30-15, Sinner worked his way forward and set up for an easy smash. Instead of pummeling it for an easy winner, he pummeled it an inch wide. Alcaraz pointed to the mark in happy surprise.

More important, he took advantage of the opportunity. He broke for the set with a backhand winner, and then broke right away in the fifth with a series of heavy forehands. Sinner and Alcaraz had achieved lift-off together in the fourth, but Alcaraz soared higher in the fifth.

“It was a really close match,” said Alcaraz, who hit 65 winners and held Sinner to 39. “I think a really high level of tennis. Really high intensity of everything.”

He credited his opportunism for his victory.

“I’m going to say the key was that I took my chances that Jannik brought to me in the match,” he said. “The break points that I had, I took it. In the fifth set, the first break point that I had, I took it.”

Sinner chalked his loss up to the learning process, and agreed that Alcaraz excelled when it mattered.

“For sure the sets he won he played better in the important points, no?” Sinner said. “I think that was the key. Obviously disappointed how it ended, but, you know, it’s part of my growing.”

While Alcaraz never surrendered his fifth-set lead, he and Sinner saved a few thrills for the finale. With Alcaraz serving for the match at 5-3, Sinner threw caution to the wind and let fly with some of his biggest ground-stoke bombs of the day. But each time he fired one, Alcaraz fired back with a winning serve out side in the deuce court. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was smart, and it got him into his first Roland Garros final, where he’ll face Alexander Zverev.

In the way that both of them struggled with their games and their bodies and fought back, in the way Sinner went down swinging, in the way Alcaraz stubbornly held on, they gave us everything we could expect in the end, and left us ready for more.