Victories are fueled by defeats, proclaimed Carlos Alcaraz with his precise tennis, the best of his life. The recent frustration at Wimbledon, where he lamented his shortcomings, led him to a superlative version of himself and the most resounding success against his historic rival, Jannik Sinner. He had previously defeated him - up to nine times - but almost always with uncertainty. This Sunday, in the US Open final, he beat him 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 in two hours and 42 minutes of play, as if any other result were impossible.

"There's something about his game that makes you think of a large airplane beginning its descent to land at JFK in New York," said John McPhee in 'The Levels of the Game' while watching Arthur Ashe here and the same could have been written about Alcaraz. At 22, his sixth Grand Slam keeps him among the legends - he's already accumulated the same number as Boris Becker or Stefan Edberg, Rafa Nadal at his age had one less -, returns him to number one in the ATP rankings and, above all, puts him first in the rivalry that will define tennis.

It will be like this. Until when? Who knows. But it will be like this. They've been at it for a couple of years, and maybe a couple of decades. Two men. Two tennis players. A continuous argument for supremacy in their own field. If the comeback at Roland Garros lit a fire in Sinner, the misfortune at Wimbledon definitively transformed Alcaraz. The rematch forced him to improve, to change, to evolve.

Nothing remains of that teenager who feared nothing—"Maybe the darkness," he would reply when asked about his fears—now he's a resolute man. Off the court, he's modified his routines, and on the court, he's perfected his game. He maintains that unpredictability with every shot, but he no longer walks unharnessed between two buildings. To make him miss, you have to make him miss. You have to fight hard to make him miss. In the first set, he only committed two unforced errors, the same as in the third, while repeatedly forcing Sinner to stumble. The lesson had been learned: no shot could be the same as the other. His exchanges were dressed in an enormous variety of spins, speeds, heights, and angles. He would slow the ball down, then send it to the side and then sink it deep. It was the formula for revenge.

Focused from the start

And Alcaraz didn't waste a second to apply it. In athletics, the judges would have called a no-start. Much of the crowd hadn't even taken their seats yet—security measures for the arrival of US President Donald Trump delayed the match for half an hour—and he was already dominating Sinner. In fact, his first set was a perfect one. More focused from the start, his performance was brilliant, with moments of delirium. One of his counter-drops, on the run, lunging at the net, brought everyone present to their feet. The duel would have lasted an hour and a half against any other opponent. But Sinner was Sinner.

The Italian had many arguments, and they prevailed in the second set, when Alcaraz slacked off. The question then remained: Will he be able to recover? There were a few minutes in which he even complained to his team, as he had done at Wimbledon. But they were few. Once again, the evolution began. Shielded by his serve, precise and swift throughout the US Open, he regained his composure and pounced on his historic rival to exact his revenge. In the fourth set, with two match points lost by the Spaniard, the memory of Paris returned, but the third time was merciless.

September 7. 11:29 p.m. in New York. The date and time chosen by Alcaraz for the rematch. However it happened. Under whatever circumstances. Tennis, for a Spaniard, is all about the sun; he only plays when there's natural light, let alone playing it in the rain. This isn't the case in northern Italy, where they spend most of the year sheltering in those enormous hangars with inflatable covers. This defines the character of Alcaraz and Sinner: the joy of one, the serenity of the other, but above all, it defines their shots. The rain in New York put a ceiling on the final, and that theoretically hurt the Spaniard, who enjoys it when the ball bounces higher thanks to the heat.