The Spaniard is the new Nadal and the South Tyrolean risks paying the damages of early sensationalism. We have criticized him because in Miami he did not greet the public
With the find / replace function it’s easy: via Sinner, in Alcaraz. The toxic narrative, that of the chosen one – Neo, if tennis were inside the Matrix – who will one day come to dominate all rackets, has already produced an evident disorientation: do you want to see that the superhero was the other one? We made the mouth of this South Tyrolean miracle, and then comes a Spaniard just of age to remind us that all the attached “paragoname” is crap. Who wins (Alcaraz), who loses (Sinner), a biographical distance game. As if there was now a reflux of rhetoric: Alcaraz is Nadal and what is Sinner?
It is the monsters that produce early sensationalism. The always inferior idea of finding a myth before it becomes one, and then demolish it if someone else becomes one. We are not yet at this, but the problem is there, one step away. Since 2019, Challenger from Alicante, Sinner and Alcaraz have a shared destiny. Alcaraz won then. And he wins again. Upon updating the ATP ranking, the computer placed the Spaniard at number 11, the Italian at 12. Alcaraz, however, went on to win his first Master 1000 right in Miami, where Sinner last year was a finalist, defeated by Hurkacz. At 18, he has already beaten a top 10 seven times out of thirteen challenges. “And it was a revolution”, headlines El Pais.
That Alcaraz is objectively ready, almost prefabricated, to place yourself on the top and never go down, is a trivial evidence. Even he knows it: “I can win a slam already this year, I’m not afraid to say it.” Technical fundamentals, rubber physique, variations, concentration, match management, even a decent volley: he has it all. He also has a delicacy of book-like manners that Heart always likes in the tennis locker room: in Florida he contradicted a call from the chair judge, giving reason to Kecmanovic, and Ruud allowed to replay a first serve when he realized that the ball was route. Disarming.
Now somebody run to save Sinner, poor boy. Who has already begun to pay for his insistence not to win all the Grand Slams by the age of 21, as well as the Italians would have the right to claim (this is the subtext of those who experience sport by reflex): in Miami he left the field devastated by blisters, “but he didn’t say hello to the public”, they reproached him. Other unspoken: good eh, Jannik, but have you seen the other? That really rocks.
It’s induced desire, Sinner. A bubble. He is number 12 in the world, he has already played on the bank on Berrettini’s injury, the Finals. He will consistently live in the top ten for the rest of his career, presumably. He is already a champion. But that’s not enough. He never is. Because the hunger of mythology ruminates the distinctions. Everything we assumed about Sinner is confirmed by Alcaraz. As if the two were alternatives, and not part of the same story. Here is the abyss: the black-white pantone perception. Either everything immediately, or who cares.
“No escape to Alcaraz”, even word games are in his favor. He leaves no way out. The other, by translation, is a “sinner”: it just doesn’t suit him. Even if now on the lever of sin, of talent at risk of waste, they will jump into it at the first opportunity. A zero-sum mechanism: the relativism of prejudice. Pump in favor of the wind or blow against. Alcaraz doesn’t need it, neither does Sinner.