Jannik Sinner, Wimbledon champion: "Success will never change how I am as a person"

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We don’t know what defending Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz was doing to bone up on Jannik Sinner’s game before they met in the Wimbledon final, but he was probably not reading media interview transcripts.

Had he done so, he would have come across the comments Ben Shelton made after losing to top-seeded Sinner in the quarterfinals.

“With Sinner,” Shelton said, “His ball speed is really high. Never really seen anything like it. You don't see anything like it when you're going through the draw. When you play him, it's almost like things are in 2x speed.”

The much-anticipated rematch at a Grand Slam summit between the two men might have spooled out differently if Wimbledon were also played on clay. But it isn’t, and Sunday’s final vividly demonstrated the difference—to the benefit of Sinner, and perhaps the game.

I'm just really, really happy about having this rivalry with him. I think it's great for us, and it is great for the tennis. Carlos Alcaraz on Jannik Sinner rivalry

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“The surfaces are different,” Alcaraz told reporters after Sinner won, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. “I think, for example, today playing on grass. . . I feel like I just gave a lot of free points when he was serving the second serve. I had to do more with those points. I had to try to be in the position of attack after the return [because] he was winning his serve game quite easily. Because of that, I wasn't pushing him, you know, to have nerves on the service games.”

The superficialities pretty much tell it all.

Alcaraz won in Paris in five-dramatic sets, three of them tiebreakers. Sinner exacted his revenge at Wimbledon winning in four symmetrical, tiebreak-free sets. The French Open final lasted five-hours and 29-minutes. The Wimbledon clash was done in a smidge over three hours.

In Paris, the men fought a spectacular baseline battle of attrition. In London, Alcaraz seized the initiative in the first set, rebounding from an early break of serve to salt it away. Sinner seemed somewhat rattled, but he soon blasted his way out of the blues in the second set and it set the tone for the rest of the match.

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In the final IBM analysis, Sinner was on the attack 33 percent of the time in the match, while Alcaraz was held in neutral, or on defense, all but 20 percent of time. Alcaraz is lionized for his defense, but nobody beats Sinner with defense. Counter-punching and making heroic gets only takes you so far, and Alcaraz knows that.

By early in the third set, Alcaraz realized that due to so-so serving on his part and Sinner’s power, he was not getting traction in rallies. Clearly upset, looking like the frustrated 22-year old that he was, Alcaraz uncharacteristically vented to the coaches in his guest box.

Later, he shared what he had said:

“I didn't know what I had to do, because from the baseline he was better than me. I couldn't do anything about it. I think the big key was about the second serve. He was returning really well the second serve that I was hitting. Thanks to that, he was in the position to attack the second ball every time.”

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This match was not the barnburner everyone had hoped to witness. But it has to encourage fans who prefer rivalries that live up to the billing. Alcaraz led Sinner in their series, 8-4 before the final, and had swept his last five meetings with the 23-year old Italian. He had bested Sinner in their last five meetings.

As this was Alcaraz’s bid for a third consecutive Wimbledon title, another win by Alcaraz would have made this much-hyped, developing rivalry more like Serena Williams vs. Maria Sharapova (Williams took that, 20-2) than Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal (Djokovic: 30-29).

Thus, this result probably was a better long-term outcome than a knock-down drag out, especially one ending with Alcaraz on top again. It’s a sign of the sort of person Alcaraz is, and why he is so popular, that he understands that. He embraces it, as if glad to have the motivation it provides.

With Sinner, his ball speed is really high. Never really seen anything like it. You don't see anything like it when you're going through the draw. When you play him, it's almost like things are in 2x speed. Ben Shelton on Jannik Sinner

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“First of all, I'm just really, really happy about having this rivalry with him. I think it's great for us, and it is great for the tennis,” Alcaraz said. “I don't see any players having the level that we are playing when we face each other.”

Alcaraz said the men were building something great because they were meeting in the finals of the biggest tournaments. And he said he was grateful for that, because it gave him the “opportunity” to give 100 percent at every practice.

“The level that I have to maintain and I have to raise if I want to beat Jannik is really high,” Alcaraz said, on a day when a tale of one-man domination suddenly turned into that of a genuine rivalry.