US Open: Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and why we don't have to worry about tennis
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner caused amazement with their crazy quarterfinals at the US Open . And for the insight: professional tennis is well prepared for the coming years.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit:
Sep 08, 2022, 11:24 am
It must actually be a fine job putting together the highlight videos for the US Open tournament channel. In the case of the colleague in charge of the Alcaraz/Sinner match, one could only hope that he or she was one of the more decisive people. Because how in the world are you supposed to collect highlights from a game that offered almost exclusively highlight rallies, especially in the first three sets?
Okay, we're all too enthusiastic now, superlatives (even negative ones) are seldom used, the healthy middle is often missing. But rightly so this time. The core message of last night must be: Yes, tennis is well positioned for the time after the "Big 4"!
And that even without Mr. Kyrgios, who likes to describe himself as the most important, because most entertaining player of the present time. Messrs. Alcaraz and Sinner have proven that strong tennis, great entertainment and even sporting behavior go together.
"Tennis on Fast Forward"
"They both hit the ball so hard I think I'm watching tennis on Fast Forward," tweeted ex-player Laura Robson. "I feel like I'm watching a table tennis match," wrote veteran Feliciano Lopez. And Cori Gauff, actually just before departure, wrote: "It's absurd, I have to go to the airport at 6 a.m., but I refuse to sleep and miss it."
"Suddenly they are no longer winners"
And you also think about it yourself during good tennis matches, with your colleagues via WhatsApp. "I've never seen such fast and powerful rallies as in this tournament," writes colleague T. "It's one thing to hit it, but suddenly they're no longer winners." Colleague U., who used to be one for the ball, says: "I'm in pain when I think about slipping like that." And colleague M. hits the nail on the head, as always, with a look back at his own early days: "It's become a different sport."
You are all right. In the past you always dreamed of playing a few balls with the pros, but now the thought scares you off. The force, this mixture of merciless power combined with the "heavy spin" of today's generation - one of the rackets would probably fly out of your hand. And that's the absurd thing: Laver, Borg, Becker, Agassi, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic - they all brought major innovations to the game, took the game to new levels, so that the question was always there: what else should come?
Alcaraz and Sinner have now given a foretaste.
Only one other tennis friend is exceptionally speechless. "I'm sitting in my lane towards work," he types during the third set, when Alcaraz and Sinner are firing one crazy rally after the other.
Above all, he has to hope for one thing: the good work of the colleague responsible for the highlight reel. Or an extended lunch break.
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