Of lithe medium build one would not imagine him to be in keeping with the enormity of his lightning court craft dexterity that has already set him up as the king having the tennis world at his feet at just 22, Carlos Alcaraz is a phenomenon for some incredible feats combining cutting low slices with ferocious forehands and deft drop shots to consistently catching opponents off guard that has put him alongside past greats in the early milky years of his career Speed and surface mastery have been his magical hallmarks demonstrated by the manner by which Carlos Alcaraz won his sixth Grand Slam title on Sunday thoroughly outclassing Jannik Sinner, the world’s number one player which was probably his best performance of his career so far.
The Spaniard drove into submission the defending US Open champion whose hard courts record over the past two seasons has been imperious of any player on any surface in tennis history who in a surprising turnaround was vanquished in a timid display.
The triumph marked a seesawing chapter between the two modern greats of the young bloc that has taken tennis by storm.
If Sinner was the master at his Wimbledon dethroning of the Spaniard in putting behind a haunting run of failures to his arch foe to coming into his own, here it was a reincarnated Alcaraz who had been stunned by that defeat, now back with a vengeance and a new trump card of astonishing serve and power play that sent Sinner reeling from that sublime once again to square one to rue what had gone wrong.
Alcaraz’s 6-2 3-6 6-1 6-4 victory was of quality rendering of an existential crisis within Sinner who later confessed he had to change his game to get the better of his arch rival.
Alcaraz believed that he was reaching new heights.
“I played perfectly,” he said after lifting the trophy. “This is the best tournament so far that I have ever played. The consistency of my level has been really, really high – it’s something I’ve been working on.”
Already hailed among the sport’s greatest-ever players, reflecting on how well the young icon ranks among past greats at his age is indeed revealing.