Was the Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner Roland Garros match the best ever played?

“Dude, that French Open final!” an old friend wrote in an email two days ago. “Just when I thought the glory days were over.”

That was the theme of a dozen messages I received and conversations I had this week, and maybe it was for you as well. If any sports fans were unaware of the budding—now fully blooming—rivalry between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner before this weekend at Roland Garros, they know about it today.

Part of me even fears that the Spaniard and Italian have set the bar a wee bit high for themselves. Is the sporting public going to be let down if they don’t make every Grand Slam final, and don’t duel all the way to a fifth-set tiebreaker when they do?

But those are worries for another week. For the past few days, tennis fans have been able to bask in a rare moment in the mainstream sun: Sinner and Alcaraz have been the talk of the world.

It hasn’t hurt that, even before it was over, their Roland Garros final had entered the G-MOAT—greatest match of all time—conversation. I saw the chatter begin online late in the fifth set, when it became clear that Sinner wasn’t going away, and that this would be more than just a legendary comeback by Alcaraz.

The match belongs in the best-ever conversation. In terms of quality and drama—the two categories that count—Sinner-Alcaraz was as good as anything that has come before in tennis. The question at the back of my mind since Sunday has been where exactly it should fall in the all-time list.

So let’s hazard an early guess.

For today, to keep the comparisons relatively apples to apples, I’ll restrict myself to men’s matches played in the Open era. A definitive ranking of the all-time greatest matches, by men or women, in the entirety of tennis history, is a longer-term project—or an impossibility, depending on your point of view. I’ll also stipulate that this is a subjective exercise, and not meant to speak for anything other than my personal preferences.

For me, the men’s matches since 1968 that stand out are, in chronological order:

• Pancho Gonzalez d. Charlie Pasarell, 1969 Wimbledon 1st round
• Bjorn Borg d. John McEnroe, 1980 Wimbledon final
• Rafael Nadal d. Roger Federer, 2008 Wimbledon final
• Novak Djokovic d. Rafael Nadal, 2012 Australian Open final
• Novak Djokovic d. Rafael Nadal 2018 Wimbledon semifinal
• Novak Djokovic d. Roger Federer, 2019 Wimbledon final
• Carlos Alcaraz d. Novak Djokovic 2023 Wimbledon final
• Carlos Alcaraz d. Jannik Sinner, 2025 Roland Garros final

All of these had multiple twists and turns, with many match points saved and squandered. All went deep into a fifth; Alcaraz-Djokovic was the only one that didn’t continue past 5-5 in the deciding set. All of them except Gonzalez-Pasarell and 2018 Djokovic-Nadal were Grand Slam finals, and only Pasarell wasn’t a Grand Slam champion. All but two were played on Centre Court at Wimbledon. That makes Sinner vs. Alcaraz, the only one at Roland Garros, an outlier in a good way. Court Philippe Chatrier deserves an all-time great contest.

I’ll start by eliminating Gonzalez-Pasarell. Yes, it lasted 112 games, but it was a first-round match.

Next, I’ll eliminate Djokovic-Nadal in Australia, because there was some sense at the time that, at five hours and 53 minutes, it was slightly too long, and that the tennis was slightly too attritional—“brutal,” in the parlance of that moment.

(As I said, this is a subjective exercise. I love all of these matches, but I like best-of lists, too, and to make this one I have to find reasons to choose between them wherever I can.)

I’ll continue by eliminating Borg v. McEnroe because…I guess because it didn’t really come to life until the fourth-set tiebreaker.

I’ll eliminate Djokovic-Federer, because…I don’t know…because it’s tough to think that this was Federer’s last Slam final, and he lost it after having two match points? Also, as high-quality as the play between these two all-timers was, the rallies weren’t quite as extensive or mind-boggling as the ones that Alcaraz and Sinner produced.

I’ll eliminate Alcaraz-Djokovic because two of the sets were 6-1.

That leaves Nadal-Federer 2008 Wimbledon, Djokovic-Nadal 2018 Wimbledon, and Alcaraz-Sinner.

Most people probably don’t have the Djokovic-Nadal Wimbledon semi from 2018 at the top of their list. But it’s an all-time favorite of mine, and the best of their 60 face-offs, in my opinion. On the first day, they raced to beat a curfew, and it only made their play sharper and, especially in Nadal’s case, more aggressive. That pace continued the next afternoon. Djokovic’s hair’s-breadth victory, which he saved with one of his handy running forehand passes late in the fifth, was an appropriate microcosm of their rivalry. And if it wasn’t a final, it felt like one to both men—they knew their opponent two days later would be surprise finalist Kevin Anderson. Djokovic indeed went on to beat the South African in straights.

Alcaraz-Sinner was as brilliantly played and theatrically thrilling as any match on the list. It featured No. 1 vs. No. 2, on Chatrier’s wide expanse of red, in front of a French crowd that lives to amp up the tension. The young players’ super-charged mix of pace, finesse and athleticism made it feel like the next step in the game’s evolution, and especially its evolution on clay. It featured a goal-line stand in the fourth set from Alcaraz, and a goal-line stand from Sinner in the fifth. And it ended with Alcaraz going stratospheric to win it in the deciding tiebreaker.

If there’s a hesitation about calling Sinner-Alcaraz the greatest match ever, it’s probably due to their youth. Someday, we may rank them alongside the Big 3. But their names don’t conjure the same sense of historical awe yet.

Which brings me to Nadal-Federer at Wimbledon in 2008. Like Sinner-Alcaraz, it was No. 1 vs. No. 2. Like Sinner-Alcaraz, it was brilliantly played; at the time, I thought it was the highest-quality match I’d ever seen. Like Sinner-Alcaraz, one player was trying to invade the other’s surface—Nadal succeeded where Sinner failed. In both matches, there was a flurry of shots that saved match points in the fourth set, and sent it to a fifth. And both matches came to a climactic conclusion. On Sunday we had Alcaraz going supernova; in 2008, we had the duel in the darkness.

I’ll give the darkness, and the cinematic images of agony and ecstasy that it created, the edge. And I’ll give the moment the edge as well. Where Alcaraz and Sinner were playing their first Slam final, Nadal and Federer had been contesting them for two years, and had been building to this collision that whole time. It would be far from their final collision, but with this win Nadal would take over No. 1 from Federer for the first time, prove he wasn’t just a dirt-baller, and etch their names together forever.

Which brings me to my list of the Top 8 men’s matches of the Open era (which will surely be subject to change in the future)

• 8. Gonzalez d. Pasarell, 1969 Wimbledon 1st round, 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9
• 7. Borg d. McEnroe, 1980 Wimbledon final, 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (16), 8-6
• 6. Djokovic d. Nadal, 2012 Australian Open final, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7 (5), 7-5
• 5. Alcaraz d. Djokovic, 2023 Wimbledon final, 1-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1, 3-6, 6-4
• 4. Djokovic d. Federer, 2019 Wimbledon final, 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 13-12 (3)
• 3. Alcaraz d. Sinner, 2025 Roland Garros final, 4-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2)
• 2. Djokovic d. Nadal, 2018 Wimbledon semifinal, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (9), 3-6, 10-8
• 1. Nadal d. Federer, 2008 Wimbledon final, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7