Arabia also now has its tennis king. Jannik Sinner, the best tennis player in the world ranking, was proclaimed champion of the first edition of the Six Kings Slam, the exhibition tournament that has broken the mold by having the largest prize pool in the history of this sport. The Italian defeated Carlos Alcaraz in three sets (6-7, 6-3 and 6-3) in a meeting that showed that both are a step above the rest of the players on the circuit.
Sinner started as a steamroller, with devastating service and an Alcaraz unable to counter it… at first. So much so that the world number one went 4-1 up in the first set. Moment in which Alcaraz began to grow. The Murcian returned three games in a row to be equal in the first round.
Despite being an exhibition tournament, the two tennis players showed that, today, they are above everyone else on the circuit – with Djokovic’s permission-, with very fast exchanges of blows that lengthened with each point, something that probably would not happen if another player had been in front of one of them.
The clash was equalized because Sinner raised the level again, and the exchange of blows came that ended up taking the set to the tie-break. The Italian was very regular, more so in waves Alcaraz, who even so when he found his moments of play was capable of overwhelming his rival. And one of those brilliant moments came precisely in the tiebreaker. Alcaraz took advantage of the first set ball in a long exchange from the bottom in which Sinner sent one of the deliveries too far, giving Carlos the first set.
The second set started very similar to the first, with Sinner again taking a couple of steps more than the Spaniard. A break almost from the beginning that he confirmed with a perfect streak of winning shots. and when I was 1-3 down and 0-40 against, he returned to resurface the Alcaraz of the great moments. He pressed with the serve, began to land blows and won a game that, if he had fallen on the opposite side, would have made the set very difficult for him.
And, once the mountain had been climbed, Alcaraz deflated again, who conceded a new partial of 3-0 with two breaks against to end up losing the second set 6-3. So the match went to the third and final, as is usual in duels between the two best in the world.
The third was an exchange of blows, game by game, during the first half. After two hours of play, once again Sinner showed more strength in the last games to break at the decisive moment: at 5-3. Serving to win, he closed the ninth and last with solvency and asserting his status as world number one against an Alcaraz who overcame bad starts to the set several times, but had ups and downs that ended up denying him victory.