Sunday’s French Open men’s final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz was an instant classic, immediately vaulting into the conversation for greatest match of the modern era.
After Sinner jumped out to take the first two sets, Alcaraz battled all the way back, staving off triple-championship point in the third set and eventually completing the comeback with a dominant performance in the fifth-set tiebreaker to lift the trophy. The marathon match took five hours and 29 minutes to complete, and every moment had fans on the edge of their seat.
Those watching throughout the title fight could tell that these two players were closely matched. Even when Sinner was controlling early, and later when Alcaraz snatched momentum back, the margin between these two gladiators was thin.
Just how thin?
Over the course of more than five sets that took more than five hours to play, a total of 385 points were played between Sinner and Alcaraz. When the dust settled, Alcaraz had won the match, but Sinner had just barely edged him out on total points won, 193–192.
It feels kind of like a Formula 1 race, where after cars have been speeding around a track for two hours and optimizing their own specific strategies at every moment, the finish between two cars can be decided by mere seconds, or less.
The margins at the top levels of sport are so thin, and that’s what makes miraculous matches like the one we saw on Sunday possible. Sinner will not be taking solace in the fact that he scored one more point than Alcaraz, but it’s a good reminder that as long as these two stay healthy, this is a matchup we should be treated to in several more championships to come.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as One Stat Shows Just How Closely Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz Were Matched.