Will Unforced Error Make Sinner Concede Crucial Match Point?

The spectre of doping allegations looming over Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner might throw the tennis world in a state of limbo, depriving the sport of its most hyped and potentially era-defining rivalry of recent times, between Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz

- Ravi Raj

Strangely, there was not enough to dissect about the Australian Open final, played between world number one and two, Jannik Sinner and Alexander Zverev, last month at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. Sinner bulldozed the entire idea of Zverev—that is the most profound analysis I could come up with after rewatching the entire final. The balance of power never deserted Sinner's court, as he continued to assert his dominance, one shot at a time. It took Sinner two hours and twenty-seven minutes to defend his maiden Australian Open title, but only half an hour of play to kill the anticipation and destroy any semblance of a contest courtesy his impeccable ball striking from baseline. Perhaps the only solace Zverev could take after a defeat of such epic proportions is that he is not alone in facing the wrath of Sinner. In the past year or so, two other men, Daniil Medvedev and Taylor Fritz, have tried to thwart the Italian juggernaut in major finals, and both of them have suffered the same fate as Zverev.

Sinner is now 3-0 in major finals, and the first player since Rafael Nadal to defend his maiden grand slam title in 2006. And if the outcomes of grand slams are reflections of where tennis is heading, it wouldn't be premature to say, especially after Sinner clinched back-to-back hard-court slams, that the genesis of a new duopoly is already laid. After a period of prolonged stasis where tennis struggled to stare beyond the Big Three, the sport, that thrives on personal dominance, has Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, two stars that don't flinch under pressure, unlike the lost generation that preceded them. Sinner and Alcaraz have swept the last five grand slams, slowly forging a duopoly akin to Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal of the mid-noughties.