Do you know the name they've given it? What about their 5h29m matchup in which Alcaraz faced Sinner? The longest French Open final in the last 100 years of the tournament's international rivalry? Numerous people have ranked it among the top five or six men's singles finals ever played because of the nerve-wracking, head-clutching, soaring mind-bender that concluded Sunday's match.

Lists of TopWhatever Grand Slam GOAT finals are being compiled, it seems, and there are intense arguments over whether Alcaraz-Sinner should be included or excluded. Enjoy the conclusion wherever you saw it; allow it to bounce around in your mind. Allow the pedantic deconstruct, knowing where it fits in your own sporting and emotional matrix.

On the Monday morning following, this is where we are. Firstly, it's a holiday. merely to commemorate Pentecost Monday, the 50th day after Easter, and not in any way connected to tennis. In any case, the holy trinity of tennis is now disbanded. Two weeks prior, the Quartet (which included Andy Murray) met to honor Roland Garros' favorite son. The two leaders of Gen battled it out in an epic finale. They have now, fittingly, left a piece of themselves—sweat, guts, heart, soul, tenor, and timbre—on the Chatrier, right next to Rafa's footprint.

Guys, do you see us now? he then asked the world.

We had prior acquaintance with them and their work, but on Sunday we witnessed Alcaraz and Sinner together at their most radiant, and their light nearly blinded and took our breath away. At the age of 22, Alcaraz, the reigning champion, had already triumphed in four Grand Slams. Jannik Sinner, 23, is the top player in the world. He has a clean, straightforward approach, tremendous racquet power, and an 18-1 record for the year prior to Sunday. As Roland Garros entered its second week, there was some murmuring about the tournament being 'flat' without you know who. Alcaraz and Sinner made history in their rivalry by erasing that slate over five hours in their last match.

Its site also compacts and compresses around you, leaving you unable to think of anything else, anytime a game becomes a live thing that grabs you by the throat and holds you captive in place. And so it was that Sunday, with the audience urging Alcaraz to react after Sinner seized control of the game. The crowd in the stands yelled his name, but the cheers for Sinner were less noticeable.

Carlito's devoted followers were demanding something more. Something that had been on the verge of breaking for more than two sets—that is, a total of two hours and fourteen minutes—under Sinner's dependable first serve boom and command of the court. Up until that point, Alcaraz, a man of several talents—including timing control, quick footwork, and innovative shot-making—seemed to be only a nanosecond away from his incisive quickness. Until he wasn't.

That switch could have originated anywhere. Perhaps it was when Sinner was approaching the finish line. Perhaps those three match points. The phrase "raising their game," which is commonly used and spoken about athletes. We both saw and felt it occur. Alcaraz took over from then for refusing to let go, whereas Sinner had three match points.

From where there were points to be won, he entered Sinner's serve and covered the court like a fiend, carving the court into smaller and smaller pieces from angles around his backhand. Each time the audience believed that Sinner had scored a point, Alcaraz was able to extend his reach and hit the ball with his racket at its farthest extremity.

The audience gave Alcaraz energy and lift from the moment he discovered his rhythm in the third set. Every time he broke serve or won a game after repelling a Sinners comeback, it was treated as though he had triumphed. As he passed the stands to serve or return to his seat, Alcaraz waved his fist at the crowd, prompting them to cheer him on. Alcaraz himself said later that the whole Chatrier community supported their defending champion in overcoming match points en route to his second championship.

Sinner was broken early in the fifth, but he managed to pull himself back at the conclusion of the game, tying the set and forcing Alcaraz to dig deep, despite the fact that the world believed he had disappeared. Or maybe from someplace else. Sinner was in the middle of the net, everything was covered, and at 5-6, 15-30 down, Alcaraz produced a precise cross court forehand that crossed his opponent before he could react. It was a demonstration of amazing physical prowess as well as an athletic mind, the full extent of which we are only beginning to grasp.

The audience was equally a witness and participant, attempting to maintain its composure between points while simultaneously revering the Spaniard and showing respect for Sinner. By the conclusion, people were no longer applauding missed first serves or silencing those who made rash calls while a serve was on the verge of occurring. At every Alcaraz uprising against the tide, the sound of jaws being lifted from the floor was the moment of silence before the stadium burst. The crowd wasn't reacting like a group, but rather like the collective that was under the influence of the Chatrier entity.

Outbursts of nervous shrieks, gasps, and unison breaths were the result of 15,000 instincts being expressed, but cheering and chanting are deliberate responses.

The top two players in the world, Alcaraz and Sinner, both have 2. They are in their early twenties, fresh out of their boyhood, and their faces have not yet taken on the form of the men they will become. Although they may appear different, these are worthy opponents who come from the same competitive mold.

When the match situation tested both men, one early and one late in the game, they each called the line for their opponent's serve. The line judge ruled that Alcaraz's Sinner serve down the tee was a fault. As the umpire was descending from her seat, scraping the ground beneath his foot and saving her the effort, Sinner hit a wide Alcaraz serve.

These two twenty-somethings are at the pinnacle of men's tennis right now, and they represent their family admirably.

"What did we do to deserve this?" one could hear one of the reporters ask as they poured back into their workplace. Mon dieu, what indeed, for someone attending their very first Roland Garros?

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