Tennis
U.S. Open
FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. — How good does one match have to be to make up for the other 126 feeling almost irrelevant?
That’s the question facing men’s tennis at the Grand Slams, given the gulf separating Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz from the rest of the sport. The answer? Probably a bit better than Sunday’s U.S. Open final, which was enjoyable but never really caught fire as Alcaraz won comfortably in four sets. Likewise the Wimbledon final, which Sinner took in four sets in an another good-but-not-great contest.
Even these two are not always going to produce matches like their French Open final earlier this summer, or their computer-game quarterfinal here three years ago. Very few five-set matches between any players are consistently high quality, and it’s a lot of pressure on one match to define an entire tournament.
