Five weeks after their Roland Garros final epic, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz met again Sunday in the Wimbledon title match.
On both occasions, Sinner held a two-sets-to-one lead and led by a break in the fourth. After missing out on three match points in Paris, Sinner held his nerve to close out a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory in London. His first Wimbledon crown is his fourth overall at the Grand Slams—all since the start of 2024—and his first outside of his favored hard courts.
The 23-year-old Italian built his lead on Centre Court by adding variety to his ruthlessly efficient baseline game, winning 30 of his 40 net approaches and mixing in timely drop shots. But when it came time to close, Sinner fended off Alcaraz's final charge by leaning into his strengths.
Going into a more power-packed version of Novak Djokovic's famous lockdown mode, the Italian commanded the baseline with pace and consistency to escape a 15-40 hole while serving at 4-3 in the fourth set. He breezed through his next service game to secure the trophy.
"It’s mostly emotional, because I had a very tough loss in Paris," Sinner said during the trophy ceremony. "But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how you win or how you lose at important tournaments. You just have to understand what you did wrong and try to work on that, and that’s exactly what we did. We tried to accept the loss and just kept working. This is for sure one of the reasons I am holding this trophy here."
The first Italian man to win Wimbledon, Sinner snapped a parade of lengthy Alcaraz streaks to land the latest blow in what is already a historic rivalry. The Spaniard was on a five-match winning streak against Sinner; a 20-match winning streak at Wimbledon, where he was seeking a three-peat; a 24-match overall winning streak, a career best; and a perfect five-match start in major finals, second only to Roger Federer's 7-0 start.
By handing the 22-year-old Alcaraz his first defeat in a Grand Slam title match, Sinner improved to 5-8 in their head-to-head series and moved within one major singles title of the Spaniard's five. He also padded his runaway lead atop the ATP rankings. The world No. 1 now leads Alcaraz by 3,430 points, with the Spaniard a further 2,290 ahead of the chasing pack.
Between the two of them, they have won seven consecutive Slams and eight of the past nine (four apiece). In the Open era, Sinner and Alcaraz are the only pair to meet in the same season's Roland Garros and Wimbledon final other than Federer and Rafael Nadal, who did so three straight years from 2006-08.
Sinner was on the verge of being knocked out in the Wimbledon fourth round, when he lost the first two sets to Grigor Dimitrov before the Bulgarian was forced to retire with a pectoral injury just four games from the upset. Alcaraz was the only other player to take a set off him in an otherwise dominant London run.
Winner of the past three hard-court majors, Sinner will enter the US Open as the favorite ahead of Alcaraz. A third consecutive Grand Slam final meeting would be their second US Open showdown. Their 2022 New York quarterfinal was their fourth matchup overall, a defining clash in the early stages of their rivalry. In a record-late finish after more than five hours of drama in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Alcaraz prevailed in five sets en route to his first major title.
Before they begin their US Open singles campaigns, Sinner and Alcaraz will next grace the Grand Slam stage in the new-look US Open Mixed Doubles championship, where Sinner will team with American Emma Navarro and Alcaraz will partner 2021 New York champ Emma Raducanu.
Tickets for the 2025 US Open, including mixed doubles in Arthur Ashe Stadium, are on sale now via Ticketmaster and USOpen.org. Spectacular awaits!
