Carlos Alcaraz silenced all his critics by reaching the Indian Wells Open final after an outstanding fightback against Jannik Sinner.
The world No. 2 has not won a title since his surprising run to the Wimbledon title last season. For a player of Alcaraz's immense ability, that is a long time to wait to lift a trophy.
Alcaraz experienced one of the strangest delays in tennis history in his last match. This was due to a bee invasion, which stopped play for nearly two hours. Alcaraz is afraid of bees, which made that even more difficult for him.
The Wimbledon champion knew he would need a special performance to overcome Sinner. The Italian had not lost a match all season and won the 2024 Australian Open, with Alcaraz calling Sinner the current best player in the world.
It seemed like Sinner's sensational winning run to start the season was going to continue, but Alcaraz showed some of his magical tennis to turn the match around.
A rain delay stopped the match for a few hours, with the score at 2-1 on-serve for Sinner. Both players needed to adjust to that, but the Spaniard struggled with this.
After the restart, Alcaraz was not himself. Although Sinner's hitting was excellent, his opponent made a very uncharacteristic number of unforced errors. Sinner won four game in a row after play began again to take the set 6-1.
However, Alcaraz began to strike the ball more cleanly in the second set. Sinner did not do very much differently, with the match mostly turning around because of the two-time Grand Slam champion raising his game.
Alcaraz got the crucial break in the fourth game of the set, which included an absolutely stunning passing shot on the run that had the fans on their feet inside Court 1 in Indian Wells.
Sinner threatened to make a comeback when he had a break point at 5-3 to Alcaraz, but the 20 year old saw off that danger impressively to win the set 6-3 and force a decider.
From there, Alcaraz's level became utterly sublime. The third game was pivotal. Sinner had two game points on his serve but was still broken by Alcaraz, who was now dominating the baseline exchanges. The Italian had to rely on his serve, which was put under too much pressure.
Alcaraz broke for a second time in the set with yet more terrific hitting to lead 4-1 with a double break. There was absolutely no stopping him from there, with the Spaniard fully dialed in.
The defending Indian Wells champion did not face a break point in the final set. Alcaraz sealed a memorable 1-6 6-3 6-2 triumph to finally end Sinner's unbeaten start to the season.
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