The clash between Jannik Sinner, world number 1, and Carlos Alcaraz, number 3, fulfilled all its promises, on Wednesday, October 2, in the final of the ATP 500 tournament in Beijing: suspense, sumptuous winning shots, heroic defenses… to the point. that the Spaniard had to change shoes… and changes of course until the decisive game of the third set. After 3 hours 21 minutes, Alcaraz emerged victorious from this duel 6-7 (8-6), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).
Led throughout the first set (5-2), the Italian held on, wasted three balls in the first set, broke a break and finished with his first opportunity (7-6). Solid on his serve, the Spaniard responded and won the second set chasing two break points and recording two shutouts (6-4).
Everything was going to fall apart in the last round, of which Carlos Alcaraz initially took control, breaking his rival first (2-1). But the final resumed when the Spaniard completely botched his service game and offered the world No. 1 the chance to get back to 4-4 and then take the lead. The duel then ended in a tie-break: behind his rival’s 3-0, Carlos Alcaraz found his best tennis to offer himself three match points. And the first try is enough.
Djokovic highlights “inconsistencies” in the fight against doping
With this victory at the ATP 500 in Beijing, Carlos Alcaraz won, at the age of 21, his sixteenth title. He thus equals his Italian rival and materializes the promise of a spectacular confrontation between the two in the future. This season, Alcaraz and Sinner shared Grand Slam tournaments: Roland-Garros and Wimbledon for the Spanish, Melbourne and US Open for the Italian. In ten matches, the advantage remains, for now, Jannick Sinner, who has won six.
But the sky for the world number 1 could well darken. After having been subjected to two positive doping tests for clostebol (a prohibited anabolic substance), in March during the Indian Wells tournament (United States), then out of competition, the 23-year-old player is now under threat of suspension. -Doping Agency (AMA). Initially, in late August, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted his justification: accidental contamination due to an over-the-counter spray used by a member of his team to treat an injury. But WADA appealed this decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on September 28 and requested “one or two years” suspension against him.
In the framework of a press conference on the occasion of the Shanghai Masters 1000, Novak Djokovic hoped, this Wednesday, that the Jannik Sinner case would find a solution “as quickly as possible”emphasizing the “inconsistencies” of the fight against doping in tennis. The Serbian, holder of 24 Grand Slam trophies, considered that he had “too many governing bodies” regarding doping and that the case of the Italian “It did not give a good image of our sport at all”.
