In addition, Jannik had already lost a match against Carlitos despite having match points in his favor. The reference is to the famous quarterfinal of the 2022 US Open, in which the Spaniard prevailed in the fifth set after an epic battle of 5 hours and 15 minutes.

A transcendent match could not have been so in a shorter format — but Sinner and Alcaraz's exploits are the exception, not the rule.

The takeaways from Carlos Alcaraz’s fifth-set tiebreaker victory over Jannik Sinner in the French Open men’s final are multiple and significant.