The golden age of Italian tennis can be summarized in our disappointment for seeing a blue losing the US Open final. Today we can afford this luxury, not too many years ago we celebrated when one of ours reached the second week in a Slam.

First Alcaraz, then Sinner, now again Alcaraz. Always them, only them. The rest, behind, is boredom, with the exception of muzzles. The forward shot of the Spaniard only marks another page of this new rivalry, certainly not the last one. In a lucid mind, it is worth returning to the challenge that decided the last Slam of the season: among the many merits of Sinner, there is the extraordinary ability to get up every time stronger, after each blow immediately.

Final without history

As in 2022 Carlos Alcaraz conquered the US Open and rises to the top of the ATP ranking, dirtying the king of the last 454 days Jannik Sinner, who abdicates after 65 weeks spent watching everyone from above. Final without history, so without regrets? The big ones or win, or learn, however it is undeniable that, if it arrives from 27 matches won consecutively at the Slam level on the concrete, that always on the tough your score in the last 24 months is something illegal, a little thought to confirm the champion in New York you had done so.

After Ko with Zverev in the round of 1623 round of 2023, the real watershed of his career, Sinner played 98 matches on the cement between outdoor and indoor, collecting 91 successes and only 7 defeats: 4 by hand of Spanish and one head against Djokovic, Shelton and Rublev.

In recent weeks, the boars of the predictions, however, gave Alcaraz ahead. Maybe short muzzle, but later. The wide difference recorded on Sunday is because the Spaniard did everything better and presented himself in the final act on the Arthur Ashe Stadium in a superlative physical, technical and mental condition. It had already been seen in previous rounds: net path without losing a set for Carlitos, while our Jannik, apart from the unustenable lightness lesson of Bublik and the still variable talent of Musetti, had already given signals of an inconstant tennis for its very high standards both against Shapovalov and in the semifinal against the revival of Auger-Aliassime.

Nothing irreparable on the long term, but now it is Carlitos who leads the world tennis and conquer his sixth Slam at just 23 years old: none of the big thues had been successful, just to provide a meter of comparison. Even if the ranking of this season is undeniably spoiled by the three -month suspension inflicted by Wada to blue, the evolution of Alcaraz has been impetuous. In London he complained with his corner because “he is stronger than me from the bottom of Campo, stronger than me”, he repeated frustrated while Jannik danced towards the victory of the Championships. Not even two months later and the pupil of Juan Carlos Ferrero showed up in Flushing Meadows with the arsenal pulled with shiny and a granite belief.

How much he believed in success and wished to venture the challenge, the same Ferrero himself revealed it on the sidelines of the triumph: “When they told us that the final would be held with the closed roof we wondered how we would have made it to tell Carlos. His answer was: ‘I don’t care, I don’t change anything, I will win this game’. He had never told us something like that before a match.”

Where Alcaraz won it

Final without history, we said, in several aspects, but the performance at the service created a decisive furrow. A 60-70% Sinner beats anyone in the circuit, but holding Alcaraz’s impact without the first service is not humanly possible. The second set, won with the stroke of the tail that only the great champions know how to bring out in the most important finals, deluded a little to everyone that the wind and inertia of the match could change. Unfortunately, in that first partial lost after suffering in every service shift and showing cracks also in the cross -country exchanges, his hunting ground, there were all the signals of a Sunday not. And so for the second consecutive year Jannik and Carlos divide the four major of the season: 2-2 and the ball in the center even if the Spaniard in this round of the Boa boasts two more slams on the bulletin board. The feeling is that, when they face, the balance can only be broken if one of the two cannot express his best tennis. The first one who takes the challenge in hand, almost always is the one that then raises the trophy. And if you have to play against the best straight in the circuit, the fastest player and endowed with infinite technical solutions, and which for the occasion decides to serve as Sampras and respond as Agassi, well the epilogue becomes almost obvious.

Alcaraz and Ferrero have viviseted the Wimbledon final until the exhaustion. In London, but for most of the match also in Paris, Murcia’s talent had been in the total mercy of the plots and the pressure exerted by Sinner by the Fondo Campo line. “It is overwhelming”, Musetti docet. The run -up to Jannik’s throne began precisely from the analysis of that defeat and training in Ferrero’s Academy.

Just like Nadal in 2010, the year of his first Slam title in the States, Alcaraz showed up in New York with an upgrade to the service. Net of the percentages that should not only be read but analyzed (what does it need to have 70% first on the field, if then on the break balls serve only seconds?), The Spaniard has increased power, variety and precision, thus defusing one of the best responses of the circuit.

Put his service shifts in the safe, Alcaraz did the only thing you can do against a lethal opponent if he commands the game: he removed that option and pushed him, first and always, dusting off the Lungolinea reverse and deciding to press at the tablet with the straight. If in doubt, the other specialties of the house then inserted during the challenge: coverage of the field as if it were equipped with scooters, variation and mesh descents, dampened, reverse slice and cylinder rabbits. All seasoned with a safety on his game plan that he has never resulted in arrogance or self -implementation. It had always been said: if Carlitos stops playing for applause and becomes more concrete, it will be difficult to keep up with him.

And where Sinner lost it

Examining the matches that preceded the final and rereading some of his statements, the first to be aware of facing Alcaraz without the favors of the prediction was Sinner himself. However, he probably did not expect to be so in difficulty in every area of ​​the field, especially in the cross -country exchanges. The choice of Carlitos to push to the whole with his straight took him the option of the Lungolinea reverse and therefore confidence on one of his factory brands. Amputated of the first service, he was then forced to play uphill from the first game and against an Alcaraz in this state of form no one can afford it.

The rest came accordingly. Without plan A, Jannik understood that his plan B was not solid enough against a phenomenon like Spanish. Hence the will, already manifested at a press conference, to work to insert new weapons in his arsenal even at the cost of sacrificing some tournaments in order to improve and become a more complete player.

No changes in sight. Sinner will never be Alcaraz, nor Musetti. The traced road is that of Djokovic, the player who mostly resembles our champion for technical and physical characteristics. The first Nole would never have won 7 Wimbledon. By improving the service exponentially, adding the reverse in the slice and the serve and volleyball between the options, and raising the level of the first Volée, Djoker has built a complete technical baggage with time, so much so that it becomes the most winning tennis player in history.

Extraordinary season that of Jannik. He stumbled upon Halle aside, he only won or final. And it is the fourth player in the Open era to be able to present himself at least five consecutive times in the final of a major (the others are Federer, Djokovic and Nadal, ça va san say …).

So, no drama for this setback. He first accepted the defeat with extreme lucidity, already giving hot the solution to the problems that Carlitos presented him.

Now the indoor season arrives, where the blue has been almost unjustable in the last two vintages. There are many expiring points that Sinner will have to defend from here to the ATP Finals of November in Turin (2,830 he, 1,000 the Spaniard), therefore it seems complicated to see him again at the top before 2026, but the priority today is not the number 1. We must reconstruct trust and find solutions starting from concrete work on the field and it is precisely in this that Sinner has shown that he was a champion.