PARIS — Jannik Sinner is just 22 and Carlos Alcaraz just 21, yet they’ve already built quite a rivalry on the ATP Tour heading into their French Open semifinal on Friday.
Alcaraz, from Spain, owns two Grand Slam titles and has previously spent time on top in the rankings. Sinner, from Italy, won the Australian Open in January and will ascend to No. 1 next week. This will be their ninth meeting; the series is tied at 4-all.
“No one has ever played like Alcaraz. No chance. And Sinner? The same thing,” said Mats Wilander, who was ranked No. 1 and won three of his seven Grand Slam titles at the French Open in the 1980s. “They’re like, ‘Whoa! What and where did they come from?'”
Friday’s other men’s semifinal on the red clay of Roland Garros has Norway’s Casper Ruud, twice the runner-up in Paris — to Rafael Nadal in 2022 and to Novak Djokovic in 2023 — taking on Germany’s Alexander Zverev, a finalist at the 2020 U.S. Open and an Olympic gold medalist in 2021 who is among the final four in France for the fourth consecutive year.
No. 4 Zverev versus No. 7 Ruud is not a bad matchup, but it’s No. 2 Sinner versus No. 3 Alcaraz that is capturing all of the buzz.