Carlos Alcaraz Set the U.S. Open on Fire

“Obviously,” the no. 1 ranked player on earth admitted, “this is the best player in the world right now.”

Jannik Sinner—the 24-year-old Italian who entered Sunday having spent every week this year atop the Association of Tennis Professionals’ ranking system—was not talking about himself, but rather his U.S. Open opponent, the inimitable Spaniard and world no. 2, Carlos Alcaraz. Speaking from a tunnel in the concrete bowels of Arthur Ashe Stadium, moments before the 2025 men’s final was set to begin, you’d have been forgiven for assuming that this flattery was some sort of elaborate jinx. That Sinner, clad in a Nike sweatsuit the same color as his auburn locks, intended to play dead entering the match, and then pounce. That was my inkling as I shuffled through packed rows of Italian giornalisti and Spanish periodistas to stake out a perch in the second deck of the largest stadium in professional tennis. Then, upholstered rubber hit nylon. It took less than 10 minutes to see that Sinner was telling the truth.

In the first game of the first set, after a series of gorgeous rallies, spitball forehands, and chunky returns of serves—methods of attack and defense as graceful as they were powerful—it became clear that this match would be defined not just by a set of competitors in an extant league of their own, but by the degree to which one competitor was picking the other apart Alcaraz, two years Sinner’s junior, all torque and sprint speed and bulging deltoids, was leveling up. By day’s end he’d go on to dispatch the lanky Italian in four mostly flawless sets, claiming his second championship trophy in Queens. What we were watching—with every drop shot, every two-hand smash, every RPM-conjured serve—were the foundations of a racqueted empire, a pyrotechnic dynasty.

For years now, the sport has orbited around Sinner and Alcaraz’s growth and rivalry. In 2025 alone, Sinner made every men’s Grand Slam final, including winning in Melbourne and the All England Club. Before Sunday, he held the 11th-longest streak of consecutive weeks with a world no. 1 ranking. The 22-year-old Alcaraz, for his part, has made three of four Grand Slam finals this year, taking two out of three from Sinner, and capturing five titles in total. Entering the final in Flushing, he hadn’t dropped a set the whole tournament and held the highest percentage of first serve points won. Sinner lost only two sets in advancing through his side of the bracket.

The two have already clashed head-to-head 15 times, more than Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer at the same stage in their careers—more even than John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg managed in their entire careers. Sinner was the first male player born in the 2000s to be ranked in the ATP top 10, while Alcaraz became the youngest no. 1 in the history of the tour. Sinner and Alcaraz are as prolific a pair as tennis—a sport marked by its defining dyads—has ever seen. Their stylistic contrasts—Alacaraz the prodigious ball striker who even as a teen prompted competitors to lament that they had “never” seen anything like him; Sinner the steady, ascendent player who explicitly prizes “hard work over talent”—are the umami to their encounters. On Sunday, this held truer than ever.

Unlike their last meeting—when Sinner blitzed Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final—the Spaniard bombarded his opponent, waiting for him to up his engagement, playing rope-a-dope for a set, and then pummeling him. Alcaraz totaled 42 winners to 24 unforced errors; Sinner had 21 and 28, respectively. Alcaraz registered 10 aces; Sinner had two. (Alcaraz’s ATP serve rating for the match was 208; Sinner’s was 163.) Alcaraz connected on 61 percent of his first serves; Sinner executed on only 48 percent.

In the first set, the younger Alcaraz dominated their baseline shootouts. When Sinner would open his hips and wallop a signature forehand, Alcaraz reacted with long, loping returns, slowing their rallies and stopping Sinner from angling him off the court. Up 40-15 in the second game, the Spaniard feinted a drop shot before swatting a heat-seeking fake directly to the spot from which his opponent had just sprinted. Early in rallies, Alcaraz leaned on a subterranean forehand—from the stands they appeared to bounce less than 4 inches off the ground.

Sinner, in turn, dominated the second set. On more than one occasion, he used his wingspan to snatch and return an array of forehand strikes. His serve, marked by a stance that loads power onto his right foot and glute, with a rocking-chair-like lean, was inconsistent but had bite. On multiple occasions, he ripped serves at upward of 120 miles per hour directly into Alcaraz’s body, forcing his opponent to short-arm a return, which he’d swoop in and crush. When Sinner hit a ground stroke with a full windup, the thump of the impact echoed up into the promenade of the arena.

In between points, Sinner would often pump his fist, signaling to both his team and to the crowd. He was battling for confidence. Alcaraz, in one of Sinner’s service games, pulled off a graceful overhand drop shot that made it look like he had an invisible waltzing partner. Sinner was back, prepping to serve before the ball had even been retrieved by the court attendants.

Sinner’s surge didn’t last. By the third set, with the crowd frothing at the potential for another Alcaraz break point, Sinner shot a forehand long, and responded during the changeover by smacking a fuzzball about as high as the 100 sections at Ashe. Alcaraz began to subject his opponent to angled attacks, ripping forehands that bounced low and made Sinner stumble like an infant giraffe. Alcaraz’s serve form—right foot diagonally behind the left, head still, shoulders steady—resulted in several strikes to Sinner’s ankles, which forced return errors. The 22-year-old hit five aces in the third set alone. One was 130 mph. Another, for set point, weaved so much that Sinner couldn’t even make contact with it.

As the fourth set unfolded, Alcaraz had—as Andy Murray once observed— been “learning as the match went on.” Deep into a rally, he would launch drop shots all the way from the baseline and leverage angles to push Sinner farther and farther off the court—until Sinner was fully out of position and he could kill the point softly. He was, in full, prolific: Seven out of nine at net, three aces, 15 winners. Sinner, who would accrue seven unforced errors and two double faults in the final period, simply ran out of answers.

On serve, Alcaraz uncorked strokes of 134, 132, and 128 mph, complemented by blistering forehands with stunning rotations. After one ace in particular, Sinner craned his head to the left and watched his opponent's shot zip past. He fought off two match points. Then he wilted on the third. Alcaraz collapsed on the hardcourt.

Through the end of the calendar year, Alcaraz will hold the no. 1 ranking in the sport. His sixth career Grand Slam title puts him ahead of the major title pace of each of the men’s Big Three—Nadal, Federer, and Novak Djokovic—at the same age. Sinner, who had the kind of year most contenders could only dream of, will finish the season ranked second.

After the match ended, the Italian walked into a brightly lit press room and told reporters that he wanted to add more variety to his game. “I was too predictable in my play today,” he said. “Sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone. Practice differently. Accept, maybe, that you might lose some matches in some tournaments because you try something new.”

He might also have to accept that as things currently stand—and in this rivalry, the margins are always shifting—there’s no one, himself included, who can match Carlitos when he turns it up and keeps his level and focus steady. In truth, there might not ever have been.

That’s the airspace to which the Spaniard is heading. One day it looks like you’ve caught him. The next, he’s blazing a new path. There’s really nothing to be done. You’re trying to beat him with tennis. He’s out playing with fire.

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