After possibly the most dramatic final we’ve seen in years, Carlos Alcaraz was crowned the French Open champion once more. The capital of France didn’t get a new king because the old king, Carlos Alcaraz, was crowned again.
It came after an epic five-hour battle where Alcaraz came back from 0-2 down to win the match. It was the first time he’s ever come back from down 0-2 in sets to win the match, and what a perfect moment to do it.
It was even more dramatic than that because in the fourth set, Carlos Alcaraz was facing three match points—and they were three consecutive match points. Sinner was up 40-0 on the serve of Alcaraz but couldn’t finish things off.
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The Spaniard then served for the match at 5-4 in the final set but messed it up, allowing Sinner to get back into the match. Sinner pushed hard at 6-5 but couldn’t get it done, and we entered into the first-to-10 tiebreak, which Alcaraz won with spectacular shot-making.
Very few players are capable of doing what Alcaraz did in that final half hour of tennis, and he was rewarded with his second Roland Garros trophy and fifth Grand Slam trophy overall.
That’s a pretty significant milestone for Alcaraz, who is still fairly young at only 22 years of age. He’s got a lot of years ahead of him and there will be many chances for him to win even more—but for now, let’s take a moment and proclaim him rightfully the new King of Clay.
Carlos Alcaraz is the New King of Clay
This might sound a bit hyperbolic, but it’s really not. Rafael Nadal is the King of Clay and there will never be anybody like him. It’s simply reality that can’t be repeated. Nobody will ever dominate that surface as strongly as he did. But there is a new sheriff in town, and he is superbly good on the surface.
Let’s take a look at what Alcaraz has done so far on clay as a surface. He has a cumulative clay record of 165/37 (per Tennis Live). That’s an 82% winning percentage, which is extremely good. Some of the numbers are even skewed by his own ability to really mess up matches and generally a somewhat poorer record earlier in his career.
If we look at this year, he’s 22-1 on clay. If we look at last year, he was 17-4, and the year before that he went 27-3 on clay—so in the last three years, he’s 56-7 on clay, which is an 89% winning percentage on the surface.
Now that’s not elite—that’s legendary stuff—and it’s why we’re making this claim. He’s been almost unbeatable on the surface, and it’s why he’s the new King of Clay. He’s effectively been that for almost three years.
Today came the confirmation, and it’s pretty conclusive. He was facing the world number one, who was actually playing like a world number one. Jannik Sinner was pretty special in this one and he was not far away from winning. He had three match points on the serve of Alcaraz to finish off the match.
He didn’t—and if he had, we might have been talking about the era of Jannik Sinner, because it would have been the Italian's third Grand Slam trophy in a row, and it would have been on clay and against Alcaraz, who had been pretty unbeatable on the surface for a very long time.
But Alcaraz was able to win and was able to cement his legacy further. Not only is he now up to five Grand Slam trophies, he’s also up to two French Opens—and back-to-back as well. The second one was a five-hour epic against his main rival and a player that will be a Hall of Famer right alongside him.
It can’t get better than that, and it can’t be more conclusive than that. Now, how long he will reign as the new King of Clay remains to be seen. He’s in a good position to remain so for a while, but as with anything in tennis, he will need to prove it on the courts.
Time will tell—but in the last three years, and especially this year, Alcaraz has been the King of Clay. He’s bested Sinner in back-to-back events, and this one was particularly great because Sinner was truly playing his best tennis—and it didn’t matter. He was still better.
