“No. It was not a tennis match,” said the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, on Sunday, June 8, “at nightfall, as Paris lit up with a thousand lights, a story that sometimes defied the laws of reality came to an end.” In one last down-the-line passing shot, Carlos Alcaraz claimed victory over Jannik Sinner in Paris (4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 7-6). The clock read 5 hours 29 minutes. Never, since the start of the Open era, had the men’s final at the French Open lasted this long. “More than five hours of legend,” summed up the Spanish newspaper El Pais, with a storyline “worthy of a film.”
The duel between world No. 1 Sinner and his ATP ranking runner-up and defending champion, Alcaraz, lived up to all expectations, leaving foreign media in awe. After trailing by two sets and saving three match points in the fourth set, the Spaniard retained his crown in the super tie-break to win his fifth Grand Slam title at the age of just 22.
As the German tabloid Bild put it, no one present that day in the stands of Court Philippe-Chatrier “will forget this match anytime soon.” Nor will the millions who watched from their screens. “By the end, it seemed cruel to want more,” wrote The Guardian. “Look at the state of these men: bedraggled and dishevelled, dragged into a place of wildness and madness, of mental atrophy and physical dismay. You, on the other hand, have spent the last five and a half hours sitting on your couch, eating snacks and gorging on the finest sporting theatre. You want this prolonged for your entertainment? You want more of this? And of course the only real answer is: yes. Yes, please.”
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