ONE reason Alcaraz's US Open showing may NOT be a 'true' indicator of glorious things to come from him: He faced 'no freaking body'. And the ones he faced took him to THREE five setters. Wanna 'discount' Sinner? OK, how about the rest. Like 100 yrs old...

Cilic who took Alcaraz to five sets?

So you win without facing Djokovic, Nadal or Medvedev. Not even Serena!!!!!!!!!!! And you are aspiring to win 30 freaking Slams?

US OpenNew York, NY, U.S.A.2022.08.29 - 2022.09.11

SGL 128 DBL 64   O Hard   Prize Money $27,915,200   Total Financial Commitment $27,915,200

 

Round	Rank	Opponent	W-L	Score
Finals	7	Casper Ruud	W	64 26 761 63
Semi-Finals	26	Frances Tiafoe	W	676 63 61 675 63
Quarter-Finals	13	Jannik Sinner	W	63 677 67 75 63
Round of 16	17	Marin Cilic	W	64 36 64 46 63
Round of 32	43	Jenson Brooksby	W	63 63 63
Round of 64	78	Federico Coria	W	62 61 75
Round of 128	37	Sebastian Baez	W	75 75 20 (RET)

Comments

[Bettyjane]

Actually Sinner is the player I'm most excited about. And actually he beat Carlos twice before (Umag in Croatia and Wimbledon) before losing to him here playing an epic match. So really, this could be the next rivalry.

[Gary Lee]

Having just turned 21 on August 16, Sinner would seem to have more capacity to improve
than these guys who are 23 or older who haven't achieved much except to become Top 10
or Top 20 fixtures: Tsitsipas, Zverev, Hurkacz, Fritz, et al.

Tiafoe is a case in point: in a 1st round match at the 2017 USO,
Frances took an aging Roger Federer to 5 sets before the Swiss prevailed.

In the 5 years between that performance and his run in this year's USO,
he got as far as the Quarter-Finals in a Slam exactly ONCE.

To me, he's an "American Kyrgios" --- athletic as all hell, fundamentally sound,
imaginative in his reactionary shot-making, but just unwilling or unable
to GRIND more than on the odd occasion, so he's always going to be very upset-prone,
and therefore won't figure in the top rivalry or two of his era...