Three years ago in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz staged an all-timer, a five-set quarterfinal classic won by the Spaniard. The victory propelled Alcaraz to his first-ever Grand Slam crown, and beyond that, served as a crystal ball predicting the future of the men’s game.
Sinner and Alcaraz are now the undisputed kings of men’s tennis, having definitively separated themselves from the field. So it’s fitting that they’ll battle once again at the US Open, this time in the finale, with the 2025 men’s singles title and the world No. 1 ranking on the line.
This will mark the third consecutive time this season they’ve faced off in a major final—a feat never before achieved in the Open Era—and the 15th time they’ve matched up overall, a remarkable number considering Sinner is just 24 and Alcaraz only 22.
Sinner is chasing his fifth Grand Slam title, Alcaraz his sixth. No one besides the two men has captured a major championship since Novak Djokovic won here in 2023. It is a rivalry that reigns supreme in modern-day men’s tennis, Sinner and Alcaraz securely moving the men’s game out of the era of the Big 3 and into another classic phase.
Sunday will surely not be the last time they meet, and hopefully not even the last time at the Open, but it will be a match for the ages—and to the victor go the spoils.
Let’s take a closer look at the two remaining contenders and break down the final match of the 2025 US Open:
Jannik Sinner
- Seed/Rank: 1/1
- Next Opponent: No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz
- Best US Open Result: W (2024)
- Best Grand Slam Result: W (2024-25 Australian Open, 2024 US Open, 2025 Wimbledon)
- Sets Won/Lost: 18-2
- Time Spent on Court: 13 hours, 33 minutes
Sinner looked surprisingly mortal in his semifinal victory over Felix Auger-Aliassime, dropping his second set of the tournament and requiring three hours, 21 minutes to advance. Alcaraz, meantime, enters the title tilt on one of the great US Open runs of the Open Era.
Despite all this, Sinner will enter Sunday’s final as the slight favorite, a testament to his incredible run of dominance over the past two seasons—Sinner has held the world No. 1 ranking uninterrupted since June 2024 and has made six of the last eight major finals contested—and his sheer, unbridled excellence on hard courts.
The world No. 1 has won the last three Grand Slams played on the surface, and overall, has won eight of the 12 hard-court tournaments he’s played since the start of the 2024 campaign, going 65-4 over that span, a positively ridiculous statistic reminiscent of Rafael Nadal’s mastery on clay. Three of those four losses have come against Alcaraz, however, the only man who has been able to solve Sinner in recent years. In fact, since the start of the 2024 season, Sinner is 1-6 against Alcaraz, 109-4 against the rest of men’s tennis.
That one victory was a significant one, though—a thorough four-set win for Sinner at Wimbledon. Except for Sinner’s default in the Cincinnati final (he fell ill before the match), seven of their last 11 matches have gone the distance, further evidence of the miniscule margins separating the two stars—and a reason for tennis fans everywhere to be excited for Sunday afternoon.
Carlos Alcaraz
- Seed/Rank: 2/2
- Next Opponent: No. 1 Jannik Sinner
- Best US Open Result: W (2022)
- Best Grand Slam Result: W (2022 US Open, 2023-24 Wimbledon, 2024-25 French Open)
- Sets Won/Lost: 18-0
- Time Spent on Court: 11 hours, 56 minutes
Alcaraz heads into Sunday’s final on one of the all-time US open hot streaks. He has yet to surrender a set this tournament, making him the first man since Roger Federer in 2015 to advance to this stage untouched, and will be bidding to become the first male player in the Open Era to win the US Open title without dropping a single stanza.
He’s been pushed to just two tiebreaks out of his 18 sets played, in his fourth-round victory over Arthur Rinderknech and in his impressively one-sided win over four-time US Open champion Novak Djokovic in the semis. As a result, the world No. 2 pulls into the title match having logged fewer than 12 hours on court, meaning he should be in prime condition as he looks to unseat Sinner and win his second Open crown.
Also working in his favor is Alcaraz’s recent success against the Italian. While Sinner clipped Alcaraz at Wimbledon, and routinely their matches have been breathtakingly close affairs, it is the Spaniard who often comes out on top. Alcaraz holds a 9-5 head-to-head record for their careers and has won six of their last seven meetings. In addition, Alcaraz’s dominance this Flushing fortnight is tribute to his maturing game.
Always capable of conjuring the most scintillating shots in tennis, he now experiences fewer dips, as evidenced by his holding serve 82 times in 84 chances this tournament. Another performance on Sunday like his six rounds prior, and a sixth Grand Slam title could be in the offing.
