Sinner out, Alcaraz in. Tennis gears up for the US Open

“Almost all tennis fans who follow the men’s tour on television have, in recent years, experienced what might be called ‘Federer Moments’.” It is now twenty years since the most famous opening lines in tennis journalism were written by David Foster Wallace about Roger Federer, the man who has become the benchmark for all future backhands. Just as in August 2006, two decades on the Swiss player was once again the guest star of Fan Week – the run-up to the US Open, a week of mixed doubles, entertainment, engagement and viral clips, a time for light-hearted fun before the real game begins. ‘Tennis and the City’, in the capital of ‘sportainment’, the world’s largest stadium with the world’s loudest crowd hosts the season’s final Grand Slam, without world number one Jannik Sinner, who has been sidelined since 12 July – the day of the Wimbledon final – due to a right knee injury he is treating at J Medical in Turin. Sinner out, Alcaraz in. The rivalry that has defined the last three tennis seasons has only crossed paths once this year, in the Monte Carlo final (in 2025 there had been six head-to-head encounters, all in finals). ‘Sincaraz’ has been the refrain of recent days; 128 men in the draw, but only two playing for the title. Around this time last year, observers were wondering whether Carlos and Jannik had killed tennis, whether they had reduced it to a private affair, a matter for them and no one else. Their perfect balance on the one hand, everyone else with their backs against the wall on the other. Every path on the Tour seemed to lead to a final between them, and the route to get there always seemed so straightforward, so predictable.

“I cannot enjoy” – I can’t enjoy it. It’s a line uttered by Novak Djokovic at one point in his documentary, The Wolf in Winter, directed by Jason Hehir (director of The Last Dance), which has just been released on Prime a few months after Rafa, the other tennis docuseries of the year, dedicated to Nadal – just to make it impossible for contemporary tennis to look ahead without the spectre of melancholy looming over it.

“The way you behave off the court must be in keeping with what you do on the court,” continues the Serbian, who, at 39, is still chasing his 25th Grand Slam title, three years on from his last major victory, before losing his top spot first to Sinner and then to Alcaraz. The hagiographic documentaries and the appearances – in casual attire or otherwise – of these great veterans demonstrate their total devotion to the cause. “To be world number one, you have to be a slave,” Juan Carlos Ferrero – born in the 1980s, a former world number one and former coach to Carlos Alcaraz – once said. Obsessive, relentless, one Grand Slam after another, the generation born in the 1980s led us to believe that the new normal was to win just for the sake of winning again. Twenty Grand Slams: the minimum threshold below which one can no longer call oneself a winner. Articles by David Foster Wallace and the way Federer was experienced as a religious phenomenon have helped to distort the picture, to erase the past and to lay ambushes for the future with constant references, comparisons and the dictatorship of nostalgia. As the New York Times wrote a few days ago: “Greatness in tennis is not routine”. It would be wrong for achievements to become routine, for anything that isn’t a record to be deemed uninteresting. The generation of phenomena (as if this one weren’t one) has upset the old balance: 20 years and 66 Grand Slams shared between three players, from 2003 to 2023. So here, then, is the ‘slavery’ Ferrero was talking about, and perhaps it is no coincidence that the Spaniard is no longer Alcaraz’s coach. It is as if the generation born in the new millennium were exploring new ways of being champions, without letting the sport consume them. At the age of 23, Alcaraz said in recent months, before the injury that sidelined him for four months: “I’ll listen to my body more than I have in the past.” Simone Vagnozzi, following Sinner’s victory at Wimbledon, echoed a similar sentiment; we’re talking about twenty-five-year-olds here – tennis cannot be their first thought, nor should it be their last. Not every day, at least. Alcaraz returned to New York with a new look and the same smile; during his weeks off the circuit, he was out on a boat, attended the World Cup final, went to a Bad Bunny concert – he enjoyed the sort of summer that young people his age experience. Sinner, too, showed before his injury that he needed a break. It is as though all the literature and films at our disposal – the behind-the-scenes stories, the trash-talking in front of the mirror, the sleepless nights and back pain, the despair after a defeat – have served to encourage all young people born after the 1980s to follow other, more contemporary role models. Tennis as if nothing else existed in the world is fine for becoming a literary phenomenon. In real life, it has been useful to develop a more accepting relationship with failure, the possibility of falling, and the need to take a break. “Genius cannot be replicated. Inspiration, however, is contagious and multifaceted.” Thus ended DFW’s article on Roger Federer, who, twenty years ago, was on the verge of winning his third consecutive US Open. He was the last player to win back-to-back titles in New York, as if the new generation of stars cared one bit.

Giorgia Mecca