Tennis is told to be afraid, but everything indicates that tennis has no reason to be afraid. This was clear in the epic final of the Roland Garros tournament between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, with a dramatic victory for the Spaniard, but also in the small details of this latest French Open, such as the pickleball court located next to the Philippe Chatrier stadium.
The trickle of criticism and calls for tennis to modernise, because otherwise the new generations will abandon it, is constant. From Gerard Piqué, who in collusion with the International Tennis Federation (ITF) stripped the Davis Cup of everything good it had, to the director of the Madrid Masters 1000, Gerard Tsobanian, during a recent interview with CLAY in Paris.
‘Young people like shorter, more intense sports, so we have to try not to make matches too long, we have to get to the moment of drama or the end more quickly. That’s why Next Gen is testing cutting matches to four games,’ argued Tsobanian.
‘Times have accelerated, people have less… patience or less time.’
What the Frenchman, who was Ion Tiriac’s right-hand man for years, says is undeniable: times have accelerated, the offer is much broader. But isn’t it precisely in this jungle of acceleration and multiplied offerings that it is more valuable than ever to own something unique?
The 329-minute final between Alcaraz and Sinner certainly was. Those five and a half hours represent not only the longest final in the history of Roland Garros, but one of the greatest finals of all time.
Bjorn Borg against John McEnroe at Wimbledon in 1980, Pete Sampras against Boris Becker at the 1996 Masters in Hanover, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2008, Novak Djokovic and Nadal at the Australian Open in 2012… And now, Alcaraz – Sinner at Roland Garros 2025. And these are not the only exceptional finals or matches.
The fact that Alcaraz won his fifth Grand Slam tournament at the age of 22 years, one month and three days, exactly the same age as Nadal was in that 2008 Wimbledon final, or that the rivalry between Alcaraz and Sinner brings back so many memories of Federer and Nadal, only adds to the appeal of this exceptional tennis that emerges without warning and with no set end time.
As Christopher Clarey said on Monday in his newsletter ‘Tennis & Beyond’: ‘Hang it in the Louvre.’ This final in Paris is worthy of the Louvre, something that the stunted tennis that is currently being proposed or pickleball could never dream of, despite the alarm raised by many over the proliferation of courts in the United States, in places where there used to be tennis courts.
That’s why the French Tennis Federation (FFT) set up a pickleball court next to the Chatrier this year, the best way to show that it’s not afraid of what is merely a diversion, rather than a sport in its own right. For tennis to be terrified of pickleball means that tennis is lying to itself.
‘The important thing must be difficult,’ Nadal used to say, in a phrase that his uncle Toni could have written. And how difficult it is to imagine a final like the one on Sunday, 8 June 2025, in Paris! But when it arrives, everything makes sense: it’s worth the wait, it’s worth having your day turned upside down and not knowing what time you’ll be free, because you’re glued to the television. This tennis is worth it, not the pasteurised, reduced and fearful version that Piqué and his friends are trying to sell us.
