Carlos Alcaraz described his US Open title run as the best tournament of his career after he defeated his rival Jannik Sinner 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 in New York to win his sixth grand slam title.
Alcaraz’s victory caps off an incredible five-month run for the 22-year-old, who has reached the final of his last eight tournaments, winning six titles including the French Open and US Open. While many of Alcaraz’s previous triumphs included numerous five-set battles and dramatic comebacks – such as his recovery from triple match point down to defeat Sinner over five sets in Paris – this was by far the most efficient tournament of his career. Alcaraz dropped just one set in his seven matches and he lost his serve just three times in the entire tournament.
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“I feel like this is the best tournament [of my career],” said Alcaraz. “Since the first rounds to the end of the tournament, the best tournament so far that I have ever played. The consistency of my level during the whole tournament has been really, really high, which I’m really proud of, because it’s something that I’ve been working on, to be really consistent. I think this tournament I saw that I can play really consistent.”
By defeating Sinner, the defending champion and world No 1, Alcaraz will return to the top of the ATP rankings for the first time in two years. Since reaching No 1 for the first time in June 2024, Sinner had held the ranking for 65 consecutive weeks. Alcaraz described the No 1 ranking as one of his biggest goals of the season.
“When you achieve the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year, it feels amazing,” said Alcaraz. “Since I got the chance to recover the No 1, it was one of the first goals that I had during the season, just to try to recover the No 1 as soon as possible or end the year as the No 1. For me, to achieve that once again, it is, as I said, it is a dream. Doing it in the same day as getting another grand slam feels even better. It’s everything I’m working for, and I’m really happy to be able to live these experiences.”
While Alcaraz celebrated a victory that places him as the second youngest man to win six grand slam titles, behind only Björn Borg, Sinner was forced to digest his second grand slam final loss to Alcaraz this year. Sinner’s victory over Alcaraz at Wimbledon remains the only time Sinner has defeated Alcaraz in their last eight meetings.
Ninety minutes after the match had ended, Sinner had already begun to think about the improvements he wished to make in order to counter Alcaraz. He described himself as “very predictable” and he said he plans to make some changes to his game, even if it means losing more matches. “I was very predictable today, on court in the way of he did many things, he changed up the game,” said Sinner. “That’s also his style of how he plays. Now it’s going to be on me if I want to make changes or not, you know? We are definitely going to work on that.”
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