If this is the future, we can rest assured. The challenge between Carlos Alcaraz and Janink Sinner at Wimbledon 2022 has already projected us into what is the future of tennis. Sinner had never won a match on the lawns before this tournament and Alcaraz – who had practically cannibalized the circuit before the Paris misstep – had also added greater confidence to the ‘green’ collection.
The central match on the Central Wimbledon turns out to be a bit different, in form and substance. Sinner backs up with perfection for at least two and a half sets. And he embellishes the loot with more than 75% of the points with the first ball (which doesn’t even work too well) and a fierce presence in response, always proactive.
Simplistically, he takes away time and space from Alcaraz to maneuver and open corners. The Spanish talent, always in trouble and never in control of the exchange from the baseline, lets himself be overwhelmed by haste and on a decidedly negative day only half remedies the problems.
The best and the worst from the London Slam
He does not disfigure Tim Van Rijthoven, a real revelation of the season, in the match against Novak Djokovic, who takes advantage of the chance available without too much delay. The five-time champion of the tournament, who manages everything in a rather orderly manner in the middle, still closes at 6-2 4-6 6-1 6-2 and reaches Sinner in the quarterfinals.
For the Italian talent it will be the first time in the top eight, for the Serbian the thirteenth.
Stefanos Tsitsipas has not yet metabolized and started to clear the defeat on London grass and has continued to tease Nick Kyrgios. On the social networks, a deep message addressed to Kyrgios by the Greek player appeared: “Give a man a mask and he will become his true self of him.”
It would seem at first a harmless phrase, like the others that the 23-year-old shares on Twitter, but the meaning is precise. In fact, the writing is the protagonist of a new tattoo made by the native of Canberra some time ago.
It was not Nick Kyrgios who lost focus and calm this time, but his opponent. A paradoxically strange aspect given that the Australian has accustomed everyone throughout his career to become the protagonist of at least one protest in almost every match, conditioning in several cases the entire game not in favor of him.
The ability to understand the direction the match was taking and to remain lucid brought the inertia on his side in this circumstance, then he was good at exploiting it and closing in four sets.