Five Hours and Twenty-Nine Minutes: A Masterclass in Performance

Act I: Prelude

The year is 2025. It’s been two decades since Rafael Nadal set fire to the Parisian courts at Roland Garros. Seeming an enhanced version of an Olympian who lights the torch, the flame Rafa lit in 2005 burned bright and big for 18 whole years, before being immortalised at the Court Philippe-Chatrier in 2025. 

As Rafa’s flame began to diminish in ferocity, another fiery Spaniard had the red dirt of Roland Garros dancing to his tunes like a snake charmer with his flute. Carlos Alcaraz has been destined for success ever since he turned pro at the tender age of 15 in April 2019. He opened at the JC Ferrero Challenge after receiving a wildcard entry into the Challenger tournament. He even did well to win his first-round tie and make it a successful debut.

His first-ever opponent? An unassuming 17-year-old Italian teenager who had just stumbled onto the Tour, winning his first Challenger title a couple of months prior in February 2019, and who had drawn comparisons to Novak Djokovic himself owing to his demeanour and playing style. His name? Jannik Sinner.

Two teenagers of tender touch and tantalising tact. They were just breaking into a sport dominated by the titanic trio of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Roger Federer in a manner unheard of in professional sport. An ambitious dream would have been consistently ranking in the year-end top-10 and winning a few Majors before retiring. 

Fast-forward to now, and the two have a combined seven Grand Slams, 533 career singles wins, over $80 million in prize money, and multiple stints as World No. 1 over the last three years. The pair, fondly dubbed “Sincaraz”, have rapidly surmounted peaks that only a select few will even come close to stealing a glance at in their careers. Aged 22 and 23 respectively, the duo currently holds all four Grand Slams. Their fates intertwined from before the world trembled at the sound of their names. 

No longer the kids they were six years ago. Echelons above the rest already. The duo has blitzed their way to the top. Still years away from the peak of their physical powers and technical prowess, one shudders at the extent their dominance may span once they reach full maturity, one that may even usurp the Big Three. 

The pair had met 11 times before the 2025 Roland Garros final on the ATP Tour, with Alcaraz firmly holding his counterpart’s number with seven wins as opposed to Sinner’s four.

But the pair’s twelfth contest was one unlike anything we had ever seen before. The stakes were higher. The Roland Garros final. Alcaraz looking to make it two on the trot. Sinner hoping to etch his name on the Musketeers’ Cup for the first time. A full house at the Philippe-Chatrier. 

Star-crossed lovers. Prophesied. The chosen ones. In many ways, this match was a full-cycle moment for the duo that first battled on the clay courts of Alicante in 2019.

The court turned arena as the players turned gladiators. Every shot oozed just that little extra quality. Every grunt carried a few more decibels of intent. Every winner meant that much more. They were here to fight to the death, and only one was leaving a victor.

Photograph: Roland Garros Website

Act II: Morituri te salutant

Sinner had torpedoed his way into the finals, undoing the likes of Jiri Lehecka, Andriy Rublev, Alexander Bublik, and the most decorated player the sport has ever seen in Novak Djokovic, all without dropping a set in the entire tournament. 

Alcaraz had also breezed through fairly easily, though incomparable to his counterpart’s form. Neither had ever lost a Grand Slam final before. However, Alcaraz had triumphed against Sinner in their last four meetings.

But it was the Italian who started the game in trademark fashion. Nothing fancy. Just hard-hitting tennis. Piercing shots that dripped with intent. A statement with every strike. Punishing every lapse in the Spaniard’s judgment. Sinner was a man on a mission and displayed no signs of slowing down in the opening sets.

2:11/ A monstrous cross-court forehand from Sinner seals the second set for him to make it two to Alcaraz’s none in the final. No grunts. No roars. No celebration. A solitary fist pump looking at the stands.

Photograph: Rolland Garros Website

He had affirmed his control on the game and looked to be on cruise control straight to the trophy. But Alcaraz was not going to go down so easily. 

The Spaniard was operating in stark contrast to Sinner. Celebrating every winner. Amping the crowd whenever he could. This was more than a clash of the two best players in men’s tennis right now. This was a clash of ideologies. Stone-cold Sinner or the animated Alcaraz?

3:02/ The Spaniard did well to pull one back right after the three-hour mark to make it 1-2. He celebrated by pointing his index finger to his head, a celebration football fans worldwide know all too well (Marcus Rashford, we love you).

Photograph: Rolland Garros Website

3:43/ The tide turned yet again. Sinner found himself leading 5-3 and 40-0 up with three championship points on the Spaniard’s serve. It looked all but over. The papers had begun printing their headlines, but they forgot one crucial bit of information—Spanish never die.

Sinner went long on his first. His second attempt followed suit. The third and final one failed to beat the net. The defending champion then hit an ace on deuce. Advantage Alcaraz.

3:47/ Sinner did well to return Alcaraz's near-court serve, but a splendid sliding forehand down the line saw the Spaniard win the game and “extricate himself from the most perilous of positions,” as the commentator said.

The pendulum had well and truly swung the other way, as the 22-year-old rescued himself from three championship points down, and proceeded to win the next 13 of 14 points and take the set to a tiebreak.

Photograph:Rolland Garros Website

4:10/ A deep return from Alcaraz on the near-side of the touchline had Sinner stretching before the former guided, nay, ordered his ball to go down the far side like a commander with his troops. A masterful forehand that screamed of intent to win the point, game, and the set as he broke free of the shackles of the earlier sets. Alcaraz seemed a reinvigorated player.

The moment the fight dies within you, the exterior can only prolong and postpone fate but can never change the inevitable. It seemed a matter of time as Sinner’s dream of winning his maiden Roland Garros came crashing down point-by-point. Alcaraz had already conquered his opponent with his grit and passion, letting out roar after roar, his trademark “Vamos!” chant echoing after every winner. His racquet now seemed a wand, a medium to his magic. 

While Wimbledon has always been revered for its legacy, tradition, and all-white eloquence as the holy grail of tennis, I have always believed that the sport’s fiercest gladiators have always been forged in the unassuming red dirt of Philippe Chartrier, not the pristine, perfectly trimmed SW19 grass laden with expectation. 

In arguably the sequence of the match, Alcaraz was still celebrating his epic comeback to take the final to the fifth set at the changeover. Yes, applause was in order. But this was different. Sweet Caroline playing on the speakers, the crowd on their feet, Alcaraz with his hands in the air. It had become an exhibition. Alcaraz was in his element. Sinner? In his own head. 

He seemed a different beast compared to the first two sets. The 22-year-old wasn’t running across the court anymore; he was gliding. No longer contesting, he was performing tennis. The crowd had become his audience. The music and applause now his background score. And, the arena, his theatre. Carlos Alcaraz was here to play his part and then some.

The red dirt of the Court Philippe Chartrier, where Rafael Nadal forged his legacy in red-hot flame over the last twenty years, was quaking as it was being cleaned. It was witnessing a handing over, a passing of the baton—one Spaniard to another. At the same edition where Nadal’s legacy was set in stone, quite literally, the world had found the clay king’s successor. 

The Spaniard started the deciding set in a similar vein. He broke Sinner in the opening game to take an early lead and began to dream of successfully defending his crown. 

4:34/ Alcaraz had broken Sinner early in the set and was serving 2-1 up, hitting three audacious drops in six minutes, much to the delight of Samuel L Jackson in the stands. The deftest of touches to satiate even the most ravenous of beasts. 3-1.

4:41/ Sinner seemed to have lost the battle already. Desperate lunges, resigned body language, defeated before the ball bounced twice. All the signs were bleeding red and yellow. Sinner needed a Hail Mary from above to turn the match around now. He was still in, though. Just the one break separating the two.

Usually so self-assured in his unflinching brilliance, this was the first time the crowd was seeing the Italian sweat. He looked like a ghost of himself compared to how he started the match. Unforced errors went from anomaly to currency. Come judgment day, it appeared Sinner was failing the test. Nowhere near his best, but still in it. 4-5 with Alcaraz serving for the title. 

5:03 Alcaraz attempted his sixth drop of the set, having succeeded in all his past attempts. Fool me five times, shame on me, but fool me six times, shame on you, said Sinner as he dug deep to conjure gold from red dirt and one-up Alcaraz with a drop of his own to win the point and take it 15-40 in his favour. Sinner had found himself again, and the break to keep the tie alive. 

Act III: Heroes and Villains

5:19. With the advantage, Carlos Alcaraz hit the most sublime cross-court backhand to take the 2025 Roland Garros final to a 10-point tiebreaker. 

5:25. Alcaraz goes up 7-0 in the tiebreak. The match was all but over. Now, the headlines were being printed well and truly.

5:29. Alcaraz hit yet another forehand down the line to make it 10-2 and fell to the ground in tears with his hands in his face, an emotional celebration reminiscent of another Spaniard of ages past, to seal his fifth grand slam title and become only the eighth player in the Open Era to win consecutive Roland Garros titles. Forged in blood, sweat, and tears, the man from Murcia had exorcised his demons and fulfilled all that was expected of him as the chosen one.

Sinner sat in the middle of the arena, all alone yet surrounded by his demons of self-doubt and uncertainty, searching desperately for answers as he stared into the abyss. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, it became a test of endurance for the Italian while it was the pleasure of performance for his counterpart. 

Photograph: Rolland Garros Website