Jannik Sinner cut an emotional figure after the French Open final, but seemed to shed no tears despite the manner of his defeat.
He would have been forgiven for an outpouring given how he conspired to lose the match, with Carlos Alcaraz coming from two sets to love down to win in a dramatic fifth-set championship tiebreaker.
It was a final for the ages, and both men would have been justified victors. Alas, somebody had to lose, and it was Jannik Sinner who could not make his advantage count.
Mats Wilander, in his post-match analysis, admitted that the sad nature of his collapse almost tinged the final for him somewhat.
Mats Wilander feels bad after Jannik Sinner defeat
Keen to rate Sinner’s performance in particular, Wilander could not help but feel sorry for this great young champion and the manner in which he lost.
After all, the trophy was practically in his hands, and yet he let it slip.
The three-time French Open champion sympathised by noting: ’Unbelievable twists and turns of course, with the three match points. I feel really, really sad for Jannik Sinner, because he deserved to win it, but he’s going to have another chance. But this is what Tennis is about.
‘The cool thing about our sport, it’s never over until it’s over. You can’t run the clock down. You have to win the last point to win the match, and it didn’t happen for Sinner.
‘But in general, just an unbelievable tournament, and we have this, by far the best match of the tournament, in the final is absolutely incredible to me.
‘They refused to go down because there was a few knockout punches that they could have gone down, but none of them refused to go down, and the fighting spirit is unbelievable. But Carlos Alcaraz, what a player he is, but he really has to be a good player, because he came back and he played unbelievably well. Jannik Sinner is the guy that took this match to the level that it was at, and then somehow Carlos Alcaraz caught on, and he was able to hang on and turn this around, which is amazing.’
Jannik Sinner has reacted to the Roland Garros final this morning, promising fans that he will return to this stage with a vengeance.
The stats behind Carlos Alcaraz’s French Open final win over Jannik Sinner
Unsurprisingly, in a match this close, there was very little to separate these two in the statistics.
Perhaps the most interesting, and unsurprising to exhibit this notion, is that Sinner actually won one more point (193) than Carlos Alcaraz (192) throughout the entire match.
This alone would be enough to tell the story of a tight, hard-fought clash, but delving deeper it’s clear that they were nearly inseparable for well over five hours.
Where Sinner enjoyed more success winning points on his first serve (70% vs 63%), Alcaraz would combat that by winning more points on his second serve (57% to 49%).
Similarly, just 1% separated them for both service and return points won, whilst they both managed seven breaks each from 15 and 14 opportunities respectively.
A match that ended in such dramatic fashion was always going to be finely balanced, but this might arguably be the tightest Grand Slam final in recent history.
