“Sometimes I think you win too much when I’m not there”: Alcaraz tells Sinner the best matches haven’t happened yet
Carlos Alcaraz, sidelined with a right-wrist injury, has used an Instagram message to congratulate Jannik Sinner on his historic Rome title while serving notice that the rivalry’s best matches are still to come.
Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, Indian Wells 2024 | © Antoine Couvercelle / PsNewz
Carlos Alcaraz, sidelined for Roland-Garros, watched the Rome final from his sofa with ice on his wrist, and when it was over he picked up his phone and wrote to the man who had just made history without him.
The Spaniard, 22, has been out since mid-April with right-wrist tenosynovitis, an injury picked up in the first round of the Barcelona Open that has cost him Madrid, Rome and the chance to defend his Roland-Garros title for a third year running. Conservative treatment – ice, splint, rest – has ruled out surgery but offers no fixed return date, with the grass-court swing at Queen’s and Wimbledon his stated target.
While he watched on Sunday, Jannik Sinner beat Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-4 to become the first Italian man to win Rome since Adriano Panatta in 1976, and the second player in history after Novak Djokovic to complete the Career Golden Masters. It was Sinner’s 10th Masters 1000 title, his fifth of the season, and a 34th consecutive Masters 1000 match win.
Alcaraz published his message on Instagram, in English, addressed to his “brother”: Hermano.
“I watch the final from home with ice on my wrist. Every time my phone vibrate… is your name again. Another trophy. Another Sunday you make history like is normal thing.”
Then the figure — Alcaraz wrote of “9 Masters trophies already,” though the Rome win in fact took Sinner to 10 – followed by a line that read less like congratulation than diagnosis:
“Sometimes I think you win too much when I’m not there.”
The smile emoji that closed the sentence did not soften it. The two have met in six Grand Slam finals, three of them last year.
Tennis feel weird when I’m not looking at you across the net between points. Tour is too quiet without our matches. I miss this feeling
Then, in the middle of the post, Alcaraz turns competitor:
“Tennis feel weird when I’m not looking at you across the net between points. Tour is too quiet without our matches. I miss this feeling… walking on court knowing you are on the other side waiting for war.”
Sinner has won every Masters 1000 he has entered this season and has not lost a set in any Masters 1000 final he has won. Alcaraz, the only man capable of interrupting that run, has watched it from a splint.
This Instagram post, five days after an interview with Vanity Fair, reads as the counterweight: he wants the life beyond the sport, and he misses the sport more than he had let on.
In this interview published on 12 May, he said he knew he was living a dream life but sometimes wished he could have more moments for himself, to do things a 22-year-old guy would do.
In the same interview he spoke about not wanting to be a slave to tennis, about a calendar that leaves little separation between professional and personal life, and laughed that he tried not to think about having 12 or 15 years of career left because the thought overwhelmed him.
My body rest but my mind still want to chase you.
Then the rehab paragraph, and the marker for what comes next:
“Rehab is hard because my body rest but my mind still want to chase you. Every match you win make me want to come back faster. Enjoy this moment. Really. You deserve everything you are living now. But don’t forget… I am coming back soon. And I think we both know the best matches still didn’t happen yet.”
Roland-Garros begins on Sunday. Sinner will arrive in Paris chasing the only Grand Slam missing from his collection, and the only man who has beaten him there – last year’s five-hour, twenty-nine-minute final – is the man writing to him from rehab. Alcaraz is not signing off the rivalry. He is telling the world he intends to resume it.
He closed the post with five words.
“I come back soon… and I hope you are still waiting there. Vamos.” For all tennis lovers, this message is a good sign.
