The Carlos Alcaraz victory over Jannik Sinner in a five-set thriller was one of the greatest tennis matches of all time and capped the first of 10 years of coverage of Roland Garros to American audiences by TNT Sports. Read about some of the specifics and the history that was made here: https://worldtennismagazine.com/heres-the-history-carlos-alcaraz-and-jannik-sinner-made-in-their-epic-roland-garros-final/25069
The following is the commentary that TNT host Adam Lefkoe had immediately after the final, then followed by the post-match panel comments from John McEnroe, Jim Courier, Patrick McEnroe and Sam Querrey on the instant classic.
Adam Lefkoe
An absolute marathon thriller. Gladiators in the Cathedral of Clay. The longest championship match in the history of Roland-Garros. Every shot, the greatest you’ve seen until the next one. White-knuckle exhaustion while maintaining hall of Fame skill. An epic first final between the two brightest stars in tennis. He was down two sets. A deficit he has never overcome. Three championship points. The defending champion didn’t just survive, he ascended. Carlos Alcaraz retains his crown as the king of the Roland-Garros play. His fifth major title final at just 22 years old. If this is a sign of what’s to come, we are blessed beyond belief.
John McEnroe
I can’t think of a better Roland Garros final than what we just witnessed. And you’re after all the talk over the course of the last couple years. Where’s tennis going to go from here? Because we’re losing Federer, we lost Nadal and Djokovic. What’s going to happen with him? It seems like we’re in pretty good hands with these two guys. So many things happen. We always talk about the French Open being a roller coaster, but I mean in two sets of break early in the third you’re like, okay, it’s like it’s going to be Sinner’s days going to win in three. He doesn’t capitalize. He goes to a four set. You’re thinking, okay, he hasn’t played a four or five set match since Australia and he didn’t play too many long ones there either five-three-forty Love or three-five Love forty on serve. You’re like, okay, you know this is a reality is set in somehow. I mean, he tightens up a little bit, but nonetheless, he forces,- And then Jannik he gets to serve for it after he lost that.
Adam Lefkoe
What we were marveling at here was they were so tired, yet the level of their play never decreased. Not once.
Jim Courier
I mean that level from Carlos in that tiebreaker was as close to heavenly tennis as I can possibly imagine. I cannot, still cannot rack my head around the shots that he was able to come up with at that moment. The pressure, the moment, the fatigue, all of it, and Jannik, I mean, to come back from all of that disappointment and nearly two hours later he’s still fighting and grinding and scraping. He’s down the entire fifth set and somehow gets back and into a tiebreaker. It was just an absolute pleasure to be able to see this in any way, shape or form. And I got to tell you, people talk about the future to us. The future is already happening people we just may not have realized it. This is a sixth straight major one by one of these two guys. This is their, we’re living in their time right now. It happened a year and a half ago. It started. The clock is already moving forward, but they’re so young. We might have another decade if we’re lucky of all these guys. I mean, this is the very first time they’ve met in the major final. And it did not disappoint quite the contrary.
Adam Lefkoe
Jim, before the match, you urge us to enjoy the present because you don’t know how many of these you’re going to get. If it is an appetizer I can’t wait for the meal. If it’s the meal, feed me dessert. But at five hours and twenty-nine minutes, it is the second-longest slam that we’ve ever seen. And every single second is action packed.
Sam Querrey
I mean, I don’t know how you watch that match and not think to yourself, tennis isn’t the hardest sport in the world. There’s no end cost for you to know that the end is coming up. There’s no, there’s no timeouts. There’s no substitution. And these guys just played for five hours and twenty-nine minutes. And as Jim just said, the fifth set tiebreaker from Alcaraz was borderline perfect and credit to Jannik Sinner as well. Looked like he was down and out in the fifth set. He found a second gear and brought it back. It was just such a pleasure.
John McEnroe
You know what’s also nice that they didn’t leave the court and they stayed on the entire time. In like five and a half hours. Maybe these bathroom breaks are a bit overrated. What do you think, Bro?
Patrick McEnroe:
No medical time timeouts, no physios visited the court. This is an old-fashioned street fight, but played with incredible sportsmanship from both players. Incredible grace from Jannik Sinner and his comments on court after the match and the only match in major in the open era, and the major final that has been longer was the Australian Open final when Djokovic beat Nadal when both guys were cramping during the ceremony, and you see he’s not cramping, I don’t think, but he’s pretty exhausted. But it was, I said it was going to be an epic five set of win for Alcaraz. I didn’t realize it was going to be this epic.
