Wimbledon 14 : With one hand already on the trophy, nearly three hours into one of the biggest matches of his career, Jannik Sinner’s worst humiliation may well have played on his mind.
It had only been five weeks since the Italian had squandered three championship points for the French Open title, before losing in five sets to Carlos Alcaraz. Sinner’s rival had won the last five matches against him going into their next title clash, the biggest match on the tennis calendar.
During Sunday’s Wimbledon final, Sinner had once again used his measured, yet destructive, game to find the decisive breakthrough for a 2-1 sets lead and was up a break in the fourth. But with Alcaraz charging at him again, the Italian was once again staring at the possibility of slipping up, with the Spaniard up double break point in the eighth game of the set.
For Sinner, during his ascent to the top of men’s tennis, his consistency and composure has been as much of a hallmark of his game as his pure ball-striking and baseline domination. The World No.1 hardly shows any sign of cracking under the pressure of the spotlight, repetitively executing his fine-tuned game plans with near perfection. This is what made the French Open final such an oddity. And on Sunday, it would be confirmed that what happened in Paris was no more than that.