Alcaraz reaches his first French Open final after outlasting Sinner (2024)

You have to find joy in the suffering, that’s the key,’ said Carlos Alcaraz after his five-set, four-hour French Open semi-final victory over Jannik Sinner.

It was an apt phrase and one that applied as much to the viewer as the participants: the quality of the tennis was not always as high as we hoped but this was an enthralling, psycho(somatic)-drama as the players battled their own nervous minds and cramping bodies as much as each other.

‘Probably one of my toughest matches,’ added Alcaraz, who, at 21, becomes the youngest male player ever to make a Grand Slam final on all three surfaces, after winning the 2022 US Open and last year’s Wimbledon. ‘The toughest matches I have played in my short career have been against Jannik.’

The Spaniard is into his first French Open final and was awaiting the winner of Friday's match between Casper Ruud and Alexander Zverev.

In the end, it was the German Zverev who booked his place in Roland Garros' showpiece event after triumphing 2-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 on Friday evening.

With Sinner aged 22, this was the youngest men’s Grand Slam semi-final since Andy Murray beat Rafael Nadal at the 2008 US Open and, for all this pair's prodigious brilliance, their youth showed.

Alcaraz was dreadful in the first set, littering the court with errors. His (lack of) tactics suggested a scrambled mind: he was strangely unwilling to come into the net or to unsheathe the drop-shot, one of his deadliest weapons.

When Alcaraz went a break down in the second set, unease rippled through the crowd: was this match that promised so much really to deliver so little?

Then it was as if a switch flicked in Alcaraz's mind and brought his gameplan into focus.

He played with more spin and shape on his groundstrokes, building rallies and waiting for the right moment to unleash his power.

Sinner was caught cold by the belated arrival of the real Carlitos and lost five games in a row. In the third set, the nerves crept through the players’ minds and invaded their bodies.

Sinner’s cramps appeared more serious – he had treatment in both the right forearm and thigh – but Alcaraz was affected too, and that brought back nasty memories of last year’s semi-final against Djokovic here, when he was utterly crippled by nervous tension.

‘I saw him struggling a little bit, I was cramping too,’ said Alcaraz. ‘I learned from last year’s match against Djokovic. I know that in this moment you have to be calm, you have to keep going, because the cramp is going to go away. You have to stay there fighting.’

Sinner agreed: ‘For sure, some tension. Tension and, after, cramps. I handled these situations a little bit better now than in previous years.’

The Italian was clearly looking to avoid the pain of long rallies so he upped the aggression factor – he should have been doing that anyway – and took the set.

‘It was a little bit weird, the third set,’ said Alcaraz. ‘But in the fourth and fifth it was a great match, great tennis.’

A missed overhead from Sinner 4-5, 30-15 in the fourth felt big at the time and bigger in hindsight. Alcaraz broke him to take the set and, as the nerves seeped away, he flew at Sinner like a hurricane.

His shotmaking was jawdropping, whether that be knifing drop shots, parabolic lobs or backhand passing shots hit at full stretch with wrists as strong as iron bands.

Alcaraz hit 65 winners to Sinner’s 39 and that greater proactivity made him a deserved victor. He takes a 5-4 lead in the head-to-head.

It was a slow burner but, by the end, chapter nine of this page-turning rivalry just about lived up to expectations.