Carlos Alcaraz saved three championship points as he produced an astonishing fightback from two sets down to beat Jannik Sinner in a French Open final for the ages on Sunday.
Reigning champion Alcaraz rallied from the brink of defeat to overcome world number one Sinner 4-6, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (10/2) to clinch his fifth Grand Slam title after five hours and 29 minutes.
The 22-year-old Spaniard is now unbeaten in five Grand Slam finals after snapping Sinner’s 20-match winning run at the majors.
Alcaraz pulled off his first ever comeback from two sets down to stun Sinner in the longest Roland Garros final in history. It easily eclipsed the 1982 final in Paris when Mats Wilander triumphed in four sets over Guillermo Vilas in 4hr 42min.
Alcaraz becomes the third youngest man to win five Grand Slams — after Bjorn Borg and compatriot Rafael Nadal — following an incredible duel between the two stars of a new generation.
Sinner fell agonisingly short of a third successive Grand Slam crown after last year’s US Open title and back-to-back Australian Open triumphs.
He suffered his fifth straight loss to Alcaraz in what was their first meeting in a Grand Slam final — and the first championship match at a major between two men born in the 2000s.
Alcaraz leads 8-5 overall having also beaten Sinner to win in Rome, where the Italian returned to competition after a three-month doping ban.
Errani, Paolini win women’s doubles crown: Olympic gold medallists Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini won the French Open women’s doubles title for the first time.
The second-seeded Italian pair, runners-up at Roland-Garros last year, beat Anna Danilina and Aleksandra Krunic 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 on Sunday.
It was Errani’s second French Open doubles title, and her sixth at a major tournament. The 38-year-old previously formed a highly succesful partnership with Roberta Vinci, also winning trophies at the U.S. Open, Wimbledon and Australian Open.
“It’s tennis, we never stop, every day,” Errani said. “You just try to be focused every day, and maybe you are not enjoying 100 percent what is happening, because you cannot stop and feel it. But right now, I feel it, and I am trying to realize what we are doing is so big. Winning a Grand Slam is the best thing in the world.”
No other Italians had won the women’s doubles at Roland Garros since Errani teammed with Vinci in 2012.
Errani won two titles in Paris this year, also claiming the mixed doubles title with Andrea Vavassori.
Paolini is also an accomplished singles player and was runner-up at the clay-court Grand Slam last year, losing to Iga Swiatek in the final.
“You are really an inspiration for me,” Paolini told Errani. “It’s great to have you in my team and sharing these moments with you, it’s something special. You are a legend, for me.”
Sabalenka rues ‘worst final’: Aryna Sabalenka called her loss to Coco Gauff in the French Open “the worst final” she has ever played after an error-strewn display on Saturday dashed her hopes of a fourth Grand Slam title.
World number one Sabalenka won the opening set on a blustery day in Paris but watched the trophy slip from her grasp as she made a tournament-worst 70 unforced errors in tricky conditions.
The 27-year-old suffered her second Grand Slam final defeat in a row after losing in Australia, with Gauff triumphing 6-7 (5/7), 6-2, 6-4 to capture her second major.
“It was really honestly the worst tennis I’ve played in the last I don’t know how many months,” said Sabalenka.
“Conditions were terrible, and she simply was better in these conditions than me. I think it was the worst final I ever played.”
Gauff’s first Grand Slam title also came at the expense of Sabalenka — at the 2023 US Open, with the American fighting back from a set down on that occasion as well.
Sabalenka raced into a 4-1 lead and eventually won a tie-break to pocket the first set Saturday, but Gauff adjusted better to the gusty winds on a gloomy afternoon.
“I think she won the match not because she played incredible; just because I made all of those mistakes,” said Sabalenka.
“I think I was overemotional. I think today I didn’t really handle myself quite well mentally, I would say.”
“Sometimes that happens, you know? You just wake up, and you don’t feel your best and another player goes for whatever and it works, and for you nothing is working,” she added.
Agencies
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