French Open/ Roland Garros 2025 Recap: Some Already Consider Yesterday's Alcaraz-Sinner Final One of the Greatest Matches of All Time

  

This year's French Open Men's Final was a hugely anticipated affair, as it pit the top two ranked men in the world at this moment.

Jannik Sinner of Italy was the number one ranked player entering this match, and had won the past two Grand Slam titles at Flushing Meadows last year and the Australian Open earlier this year. His opponent was Spain's Carlos Alcaraz, who was the defending champion here in Paris. Alcaraz also had won Wimbledon for the past two years. 

Overall, Sinner entered this match with three career Grand Slam titles under his belt, compared with Alcaraz, who had won four Grand Slam titles, dating back to his 2022 US Open win.

So it was going to be a big event, no matter what.

Somehow, though, this one not only lived up to the hype, but actually exceeded it.

That said, however, it sure did not look that way early on. Sinner won the first two sets. And while Alcaraz managed to win the third set, Sinner at one point was up 5-3 in the fourth set, and held a Love-40 advantage over Alcaraz. That meant that he had three straight Championship Points. Had he won even one of those points, it would have given Sinner, not Alcaraz, the 2025 French Open title.

To his credit, however, Alcaraz dug in deep. He held off those three match points, becoming only the third man in the Open era to save a match point during a Grand Slam Men's Singles Final, with the other two being Gastón Guadio against Guillermo Coria at the French Open in 2004, and Novak Djokovic against Roger Federer at Wimbledon back in 2019. 

Later on, after the match, he said that he thought about his fellow countryman Rafa Nadal, and how he often managed to dig in deeper to stage incredible comebacks.

"The match is not finished until he wins the last point," Alcaraz said in his postmatch news conference. "A lot of times people came back from match point down in final of a Grand Slam or even in other matches. I just wanted to be one of those players who saved match point in the Grand Slam final and ended up winning.  

"I just believed all the time. I never doubted myself, even in those match points down. I thought, just one point at a time. Just one point and then after one point, try to save that game and keep believing. That's what I thought." 

It was the first time in nine attempts that Alcaraz actually succeeded in coming back from two sets to none down to win. 

In all, the match lasted 5 hours and 29 minutes, which distinguishes it as the longest French Open Men's Final ever, and the second longest Grand Slam Men's Final in history. 

"When the situations are against you, you have to fight, keep fighting," Alcaraz said. "It is a Grand Slam final. It's no time to be tired. It's no time to give up. It's time to keep fighting, try to find your moment, your good place again, and just go for it.  

"I think the real champions are made in [those] situations when you deal with that pressure in the best way possible. That's what the real champions have done in their whole careers. I'm just trying to feel comfortable in the situations with the pressure, and I'm not being afraid of it."

One stat which many people have since made much of is that Alcaraz is exactly the same age -- 22 years, 1 month, 3 days old -- as Nadal was when he won his fifth Grand Slam title. That one also was a legendary match, when Nadal defeated Roger Federer in that legendary 2008 Wimbledon Men's Final, which was at the time the first Grand Slam away from Paris in Nadal's career. It also lifted him to the number one ranking, also for the first time, although Alcaraz already was ranked number one in the past. 

Not surprisingly, Nadal was among the first people to congratulate Alcaraz on social media.

"Honestly, the coincidence of winning my fifth Grand Slam in the same age as Rafa Nadal, I'm going to say that's destiny, I guess," Alcaraz said, smiling. "It is a stat that I'm going to keep for me forever, winning the fifth Grand Slam at the same time as Rafa, my idol, my inspiration. It's a huge honor honestly. Hopefully it's not going to stop like this." 

Sinner, meanwhile, looked utterly stunned after the match ended.

Still, to his credit, he showed some maturity and perspective. He rightly took pride in how well he played throughout the tournament, and that he was part of a match like this. Here was some of what he said after the Men's Final:

"I don't think I will sleep very well tonight," he said at the trophy presentation.  

"Happy about the tournament still," he said later at a news conference. "But obviously this one hurts.  "It's a very high-level match, that's for sure. Happy to be part of this. But yeah, the final result hurts.  

"Today I had chances. I was break up in the third. Was break up in the fourth. Was three match points. Serving for the match. Came back. 6-5, I had chances also in the fifth. So many chances I couldn't use. Sometimes you have these days. You can't really do anything now." 

A marathon match, really, in which the young Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz managed to outlast Jannik Sinner 4-6, 6-7 (7-4), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (10-2). With the win, Alcaraz became the eighth man in the Open era to successfully defend a French Open title, once again lifting up La Coupe des Mousquetaires - the prestigious trophy that goes to the champion on the men's side - right on the center of the Court Philippe-Chatrier at the Stade Roland Garros. 

Alcaraz has also won Wimbledon twice in a row. In just under three weeks, he will have a chance to defend that title, as well. 

Would anyone really be surprised if Alcaraz and Sinner meet once again at the very late stages in that tournament?

Much of the information used in this particular blog entry, and all of the quotes used in the same, were taken by this ESPN article (see link below):

Alcaraz comes back to down Sinner in 5-set French Open epic by Simon Cambers Jun 8, 2025: 

https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/45474553/alcaraz-comes-back-sinner-5-set-french-open-epic