One of the great finals . . .

I was pulling for Sinner but you have to admire the fighting qualities of Alcaraz. A brilliant final. Well done Alcaraz!

There have been finals that matched this for drama. But the quality of tennis here was at a new level. Not perhaps on the serve, but the ground shots were awesome from both…and at the start of the deciding tiebreak Carlos was spectacular.

This surface is slightly in the Spaniard’s favor. But if he is going to prevail consistently Sinner will have to serve better on the crucial points.

Can’t wait for Wimbledon.

I indicated on site that I supported Alcaraz to win the final because other than Djokovic Sinner did play only one seeded player namely Rublev - whose recent performances in tennis collapsed because of mental deficienies and was seeded 17 for the French Open and is going the same way as Tsitsipas in the rankings. I thoght he ould play better than he did and forced Skinner to play on the highest level he is capable of - but it did not work out.

The match between Sinner and Djokovic only showed that the latter is not the player he sued to be. And I would sy that it showed that age had a negative effect on Djokovic who needed the physio twice in the match. So the real test was between Sinner and Alcaraz.

A really fantasic final match was the result. What is clear is that in the first two sets Sinner was sublime and reigned supreme - so at the end of set two I had to see somebody and turned the TV off thinking that Sinner would win. Two hours later I checked the outcome and then saw that Alcaraz won the 3rd and 4th sets. The 5th set was a ding-dong battle as well with Alcaraz serving to win the match and lost the game and I thought Sinner would win. In the end a tiebreaker followed after Sinner had a break point in the game and lost it.

I would call the 5th set tie-breaker was one-sided in favor of Alcaraz and my impression was that an absence of 4 months of Sinner from tournaments ultimately had a negative impact on the performance of Sinner. Next week there are two ATP 500 grass court tournaments - where ranked players routinely [;ayed in in reparation dfor Wimbledon/ According to nominations Sinner will play in the Halle torunament and Alcaraz in the Queens Park tournament. But I expect an indication of how the changed surface would be handled by the two players and still expect a final between Alcaraz and Sinner in the Wimbledon final. The dark horse in the Wimbledon tournament y l will be Draper.

The only certainty in the Wimbledon torrunament are Sinner at number 1 and Alcaraz at number 2 with zverev being number 3, For the rest the seedings could change quite drastically over the next two weeks, Of the 32 ranked players 11 are palying in the two tournaments this week amd pme cam expect the 32 will all lay next week as well. The rankings on 22 June 2022 will determine the seedings in the Wimbledon tournament and sentially also the draws.

So like everybody else I believe Wimbledon this year would be spectacular as well.

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