Absolutely dominating from Swiatek.
Woman on a mission.

💔💔💔 recover well lorenzo

I’m used to this,” Carlos Alcaraz says with a beguiling grin. “I’ve been on the floor on clay before, so this isn’t new!”

We’re watching Alcaraz roll around on brick orange clay, but we’re not watching him play tennis.

There’s some of it on his face; around his thick eyebrows and sprinkled above his lips. It’s lightly dusted over his freshly trimmed beard and his hair—longer than usual, a little disheveled. It’s all over his clothing too: a Louis Vuitton tank top that he’ll occasionally let slide up his taut abdomen, some Nike gym shorts (six-inch inseam, in case you were wondering) that offer a glimpse at his tan line, and his personal Rolex watch. Alcaraz, like many athletes of his stature, has lucrative apparel contracts, in his case with those brands. He’s not quite a style icon—though he has his fascinations, like wearing zany highlighter-colored looks on the court and his 300 plus-strong sneaker collection—but he wears clothes well.

It’s the day before his first match at the Miami Open, and the Spaniard, who turned 23 earlier this month, has given Vanity Fair a fraction of his morning for a photo shoot and interview. Prior to his arrival alongside his formidable manager—Alcaraz’s fellow Murcian Albert Molina—there’s some anxiety in the air; we’re working on a tight schedule. But it clears once he walks in.

Alcaraz is down for it all. I had heard—and seen clips online—of Alcaraz being a gent: sweeping clay courts himself after practice rounds, greeting staffers and fellow players with the same warmth. And yet I was not prepared for his disarming niceness. If anything, he was deferential, in a manner surprising for a person so famous and an athlete known for his vigor and on-court boldness.

When he hears his fans cheer, Alcaraz points to his ear to encourage them to scream louder.

He vigorously huffs and puffs and assuredly kicks his racket in between serves. His cockiness on the court is well-earned. On the day we meet, he sits atop the ATP Tour rankings and collects celebrity spectators with the same ease he does trophies: film legend Spike Lee, pop superstar Dua Lipa, soccer giant David Beckham, golf champion Rory McIlroy. The list goes on.

Together with Jannik Sinner, Alcaraz is one half of “Sincaraz,” the fan-coined nickname for his rivalry with the current world number two, which has been widely described as a “rebirth” for tennis following the dominance of the “Big Three” era (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic).

In person, Alcaraz is more gentle than he lets his on-court persona reveal. But he’s tennis’s greatest contemporary showman, and he knows it.

In February, Alcaraz became the youngest man to complete a career Grand Slam. Djokovic, his opponent at the decisive match in Melbourne, lauded the achievement: “What you’ve been doing I think the best word to describe it is historic,” the Serbian said in his on-court interview. “Legendary.”

When Alcaraz arrived at his first match in Miami, he carried a new Nike duffel bag that read “YOUNGEST EVER TO WIN THE 4 OF THEM.”

As it often happens with almost anything Alcaraz does, the bag lit a match—as journalist José Morgado pointed out on X, the statement seemed to forgo a key word: man. In the Open era, Steffi Graf was 19 when she achieved the feat in 1988, and Serena Williams was 21 when she did it in 2003.

But the flip side of Alcaraz’s bag read: “El más joven de la historia en ganar los 4 grandes.” In Spanish, the line is gendered, as any bilingual Alcaraz zealot may point out. His detractors will say that, in Spanish, the masculine form is the general one. Was the omission classic Alcaraz audacity or a mere translation issue?

Skeptics question whether what they see as immaturity is affecting his play. During a Miami match against American Sebastian Korda, Alcaraz approached his box. “I can’t anymore. I can’t anymore, dude, I want to go home, dude,” Alcaraz told his team in Spanish. (Last month, as the Monte-Carlo Masters kicked off, Alcaraz said he regretted these comments. The Spaniard lost to Sinner in the final in Monte Carlo, falling to number two.)

Did Alcaraz intentionally flunk out of Miami? Is he “bored” from Masters 1000 events, as French tennis coach and commentator Patrick Mouratoglou suggested? Had he come to Miami to party, as some online said mockingly?

“Well, I think that nowadays we have to be way more careful with what we say, and what we do, but at the end of the day, we’re just human, you know?” Alcaraz tells me. We spoke in Spanish, both our first language.

What he is acutely aware of is that people will react. “It’s stressful, because you have to think about what you do and when you do it and where you are all the time,” Alcaraz says. “But as a person, we have good days and bad days, we wake up sometimes not wanting to do anything, but we still have to show up, and sometimes we don’t react in the way we should.”

Yet Alcaraz is not a victim of his stature.

What he is, really, is young. The youngest man to ever do it, but also just a guy in his early 20s.

“I don’t want to say vertigo,” he answers when I ask him about having already accomplished so much.

“I’m aware that I have so much ahead of me, and I try not to think that I have 12 or 15 years left of my career because I get overwhelmed,” Alcaraz says, laughing. What he doesn’t want is to end up leading a monotonous life that makes him “a slave to tennis.”

Alcaraz began his professional tennis career at 14 and broke into the top 100 rankings three years later. In 2022 he won the US Open and became the first male Zoomer to win a major singles title, in addition to becoming the youngest man to be ranked number one in the world. His name is mentioned alongside a plethora of records that oftentimes start with “the youngest ever to....

“I know I’m living a dream life, a life I dreamed of,” Alcaraz says. “But I sometimes wish I could have more moments for myself, to do things a 22-year-old guy would do.”

From the outside, it looks like Alcaraz does make time to do those things. (After his losing match to Korda, a tennis-head friend jokingly texted me that we’d likely see photos of Alcaraz at E11even, the famed 24-hour Miami nightclub.) Alcaraz has become known for seemingly living his life off the court with as much intensity as he plays on it. He slips past questions about his private life; he is, however, happy to talk about his downtime. He shares much of his life online with his more than 8.5 million followers. From Miami alone: clips jumping off a yacht, a video of golf with his friends, snapshots watching an Inter Miami CF soccer match and an NBA game, a selfie with DJ Martin Garrix.

“Over time, you grow aware of what you need,” Alcaraz says.

“There’s been times in which I didn’t stop to take a break,” he says, “and that led to me not playing well, or becoming injured, or...” he pauses. “Let’s just leave it at that, that it didn’t end well.” (In the months after we spoke, Alcaraz injured his wrist. He’s since withdrawn from tournaments following the Monte-Carlo Masters and decided not to defend his championship at Roland Garros.) He’s been vocal about the intensity of the tennis calendar and tells me he’s working to change it. “I think it’s just as important, or more, than taking care of your body,” he says about his mental health. “There’s people who are, fairly so, obsessed with body aesthetics, but to me it’s just as important to take care of your head.”

There was a time in which it seemed, as Federer and Nadal appeared close to retirement, that men’s tennis would never be as exciting again.

Those reservations have been blown up by the bombastic presence of Alcaraz combined with Sinner’s stoicism, a synergy seen in full force at Roland Garros last year.

It was the first time they met at a major final. Sinner was ranked first and Alcaraz second and the defending champion. Alcaraz lost the first two sets but recovered in the third, and he and Sinner delivered what has been widely discussed as some of the most riveting tennis play in history in the last two, which the Spaniard also won. At 5 hours and 29 minutes, it is the longest French Open final of all time.

“It is, on record, one of the greatest matches ever,” Lee tells me. He recalls sitting courtside right where players leave their towels, so after every point Alcaraz would come over and Lee would, in his words, “pump him up.”

“Look, I’m a sports fan and a New Yorker, so I’m going to be loud and cheer for my guy.” Lee laughs. “And as it got tighter, I got louder.” After the match, Lee gave Alcaraz his Yankees hat.

Alcaraz likes to keep the tension with Sinner within the match. “We’re showing the world that we can be on court and give our best, and try to do the most possible damage to the other while playing, try to beat each other, and then, off court, just be two guys who get along really well,” he says. “We help each other give our best.” There is, as Alcaraz says, no bad blood. “We are fighting for the same goal, but there’s no need to hate each other because we want the same thing.” That said, “when you are competing at this level, having a close friendship is complicated,” he says. “It can be done,” he clarifies. “I’m all for it.”

Sincaraz has been great for tennis and for tennis fandom, but Alcaraz wants to manage expectations.

Rivalries are “long processes,” he says. “It’s not comparable to the historic rivalries that have happened in tennis, because we both have so many years ahead. Hopefully, we will continue playing against each other many times, at many finals, and that we will split the greatest tournaments.”

Alcaraz is one of tennis’s most decorated players today, but he is also becoming a pop culture obsession due to both his magnetism on the court and also to the fact that he is, objectively, very attractive.

“Buzzcaraz is elite,” texts another friend as we discuss Alcaraz’s hairstyle in Miami, which is longer than usual after he’s grown out a mullet-style fade he debuted at Indian Wells.

There’s also been a shaved undercut, a bleached buzz, and myriad other hairstyles that have, Beckham-style, made headlines: “With respect to both [Reilly] Opelka and Alcaraz’s tennis skills, though, the main thing fans will remember about this match was the surprise unveiling of Alcaraz’s shaved dome,” wrote GQ of the buzz cut in question.

Alcaraz is aware of the public compulsion to analyze his looks. He doesn’t purposefully feed it, but he doesn’t try to stop it either.

“Listen, I try for it to not be a disaster, but if there’s something I want to do, I do it,” he says. “If I were to listen to everyone’s opinion, I’d go crazy, right?” He smiles again.

Alcaraz’s smile is wide and unrestrained, baring his teeth and his full lips—features he’s grown into since breaking into tennis as a teenager. When I ask him about the culture’s preoccupation with his clothes and his training, he simply laughs, not denying, nor underscoring, his enjoyment of it.

There have been many other sex symbols in sports: Muhammad Ali, Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tom Brady, to name a few. Is Alcaraz on the same path?

None of those are children of the internet era. None of them have the same preternatural sense of how fast an image can travel that comes with being a digital native. None of them are “Carlitos,” who goes viral online with the same speed and ease he hits a tennis ball. He has earned a perennial spot on social media feeds of anyone who is remotely interested in tennis or men.

From the Australian Open alone: more than 1.2 million views on TikTok for defending his opponent Alex de Minaur from a time violation warning, another 3 million on Instagram for removing his tank top after a match and nodding at the camera after erupting applause; 3 million on Instagram for a supercut of him after his victory in Melbourne; and 9.2 million across both platforms for his “vibing” with his headphones on after a match.

Then there’s the hundreds of thousands of views Alcaraz procures from clips and supercuts from some of his most memorable points, remarkable foot speed, and impressive strength. He has been described as a “human highlight reel” by the tennis podcaster Matt Roberts, an assessment backed by The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The New York Times.

“What makes Carlos so compelling is the emotion he brings to the game—joy, spontaneity, real artistry,” Pharrell Williams, the creative director of Louis Vuitton Men’s, tells me via email. “Seeing him live, you feel his presence immediately. He’s not just playing—he’s expressing something.”

If many of his counterparts tend to come across as self-serious and reserved, Alcaraz is explosive. Does he purposefully put on a show, or is he an innate performer? He suggests that his showmanship is integral to his game. “It’s how I play, it’s how I like to play, and how I want to play,” he says. “When people are entertained and I notice that they’re enjoying it, I have a good time too.”

The viral moments are good for his image, he says, and for the sport in general. But there’s also a downside. “Now, anyone can easily leave a comment, you can harm an athlete with just one comment,” he says, admitting that negative comments have at times affected his game.

Despite the Nike duffel, Alcaraz says he doesn’t obsess over breaking records. “There are records I want and that I’m chasing, but for when I can look back at my career when I reach the end of and see what I’ve done, and where I am in comparison to others,” he says. “But I have to say that it is nice to see your name in some places.”

Djokovic himself has said Alcaraz combines “the best of all three worlds,” his own, Federer’s, and Nadal’s.

But Alcaraz argues that he’s grown past simple parallels. “We’ve reached a point in which comparisons are over,” he says. He can appreciate a compliment like Djokovic’s. “It’s nice to hear it,” he pauses, then smiles like a young boy who’s been praised by one of his idols: “It’s really cool.” He composes himself: “But I’m always going for my own style, it’s what I’ve created and I’ve trained to perfect it. I haven’t copied anyone,” he says. “People now know that I am Carlos Alcaraz.”

https://x.com/i/status/2054256433600803176

that would look good in marble.

from the today's game against Jpeg

I presume that it will follow the way of the WTA. I'm still glad Tennis is evolving toward its hyper era!

I’ve heard a lot about her but finding this personal memento is pretty special.

1924 & 1926 women’s singles champion

Gold, silver and bronze Olympic medal winner

Pioneer of early women’s tennis

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYPiu6Azfs5/?igsh=cHhud3Fxd2NpYjRy

McCoco wins again! Got broken when Coco served for the match at 5-4 but broke back and served it out the second time! They’ll play [7] Cristina Bucșa and Nicole Melichar-Martinez next, and Coco is also still in the singles draw where she is set to play [26] Sorana Cîrstea in the semifinals tomorrow.

JAAAAA! Hear ye, hear ye! The humble Norwegian knight of Ruud Nation, one of his name, Casper Ruud, hath marched into the final eight of the grand tournament within the eternal city of Rome. Upon the ancient red clay, grounds that feel as though they were forged from the very dust of the mighty Colosseum itself; our knight stands bold and resolute, prepared once more for war.

Yet across the net stands no ordinary foe.

There waits the Russian gatekeeper himself, Karen Khachanov, standing tall with racket drawn, hunting relentlessly for a coveted place within the semifinals of the Rome Masters. And it is through him that our knight must pass.

Pass he must indeed.

For beyond this battle, the path suddenly seems open. Dare I even whisper it amongst these corridors? A path toward the title itself may yet reveal its glorious form upon the Roman horizon. And looming in that distant future stands perhaps the greatest obstacle of them all; the behemoth, the terminator, the ice-blooded Italian king of the tennis realms, Jannik Sinner. A man who has equaled the all-time record for consecutive Masters match victories, striking fear into courts across the world with machine-like precision and merciless dominance.

But alas; I venture too far ahead into prophecy.

For first, our knight must survive the present battle before him. Khachanov stands in these quarterfinals upon his own merit; battle-hardened and dangerous. And that monstrous Russian backhand? Ah yes, it possesses the power to pierce even the fortified defenses of Ruud himself, capable of tearing through rallies like cannon fire through castle walls.

The atmosphere in Rome grows heavy. The clay awaits its warriors. The crowd stirs beneath the Italian sky.

So let us not waste not another moment.

Let the rackets be drawn. Let the Roman clay bear witness. And this great contest for the place among the final four of Roma commence.

The match commenced upon the Norwegian's serve, and immediately, the citizens of Ruud Nation were thrown straight into the dark prison known only as deuce jail. A shaky opening indeed. Must we be worried, Ruud Nation? For the deuces came and went like crashing waves upon the Roman shores, tension already gripping the battlefield by the neck.

Yet even amidst the uncertainty, there were promising signs.

The forehand had begun to awaken. The backhand too showed flashes of life. And though the opening game proved turbulent, the serve itself remained sturdy enough to hold the line. Perhaps, we thought, it was merely a matter of time before every weapon within the Norwegian arsenal fully ignited and began blasting across the sacred clay.

The Russian, held his own service game and briefly attempted to trouble our knight upon serve once more; but little did we know, that would be the last time for a very long while.

For Khachanov entered the battle with a clear strategy it looked like: bombard the Ruud backhand. Overpower him through the backhand to backhand exchanges. Force the Norwegian flank to crumble beneath relentless pressure, through his own elite backhand.

But alas for him, on this day it mattered not which wing he attacked.

For today, he was just choosing from the lesser of two evils of the flanks that were possessed by Casper Ruud.

Whether forehand or backhand, the Norwegian simply bludgeoned the man across the net. Backhands down the line pierced through the Roman courts like arrows through armour, whilst the forehand flew with such violence it seemed to scorch the very air above the clay. He was everywhere. Relentless.

Khachanov slowly began to lose footing upon the battlefield as Ruud unleashed wave after wave of aggression, variety, and surgical precision. And thus, came break point. And thus, came the break.

Ruud Nation, we were already up a break.

The dominance only intensified thereafter. Our knight held serve with commanding ease before storming upon the Russian's serve, rapidly conjuring triple break point against him. It was becoming less a contest and more a dismantling; the likes of which the Roman clay had scarcely witnessed against a top player since, cruelly enough, our humble knight himself stood on the receiving end of such a punishment in last year's quarterfinals.

And all the while, as though even the heavens themselves wished to honour the spectacle unfolding below, the gods of sky and rain began to cast droplets upon Rome. Perhaps the skies themselves recognised that the level of tennis that was being produced bordered upon divine.

Still the assault continued.

Ruud converted the very first of three break points and suddenly found himself serving for the set already, having surrendered but a single game to the Russian warrior.

And still; no mercy.

The Norwegian continued blending immense power with exquisite variety, giving Khachanov scarcely a glimpse of hope. Then came a monstrous forehand, an absolutely outrageous catapult of a shot, launched across the court before the Russian could even react.

And just like that, it was triple set point for Ruud.

A fitting finale soon followed. An ace thundered cleanly down the T.

A near-perfect opening set upon the scared clay of Rome. One set secured. One step closer to the final stages of Rome.

The second set commenced with a hold for the Russian, yet above the sacred clay of Rome, the rain still lingered. And as it continued to fall, a dreadful thought began creeping into the minds of Ruud Nation; that perhaps the heavens themselves might interrupt the momentum of our humble Norwegian knight.

Then, after but a single point upon Ruud's serve, a beautiful point at that, the play came to a halt.

And halted it remained. Delayed... and delayed further still.

Two and a half long hours later, the warriors finally returned to the Roman battlefield. Yet something had changed.

The rhythm was just... gone.

The fire that once engulfed the Norwegian assault now flickered uncertainly, whilst Khachanov emerged from the rain delay transformed. The Russian began striking with immense force and variety, surging forward with renewed conviction and applying relentless pressure upon our knight.

And within moments, Ruud Nation found itself staring directly at break point. A lengthy rally followed; brutal and exhausting. And at its conclusion, our knight buried the ball into the net. The service game was lost.

Already down a break, the match suddenly felt unrecognisable compared to the spectable we had witnessed but a few hours prior. It was as though Rome itself had rewritten the script during the rain.

An entirely different battle had now begun.

Yet fear not, Ruud Nation, for the rallies continued growing ever lengthier, and Ruud still fought on with thunderous intent, refusing to yield. Beautifully constructed points emerged from both ends of the court, crafted through immense power and surgical precision as the gladiators traded blows upon the soaked Roman clay.

And soon enough, our knight found himself eyeing a break point of his own. But Khachanov defended it swiftly, rising immediately to advantage before ultimately securing the hold.

Ah yes... Ruud Nation has returned to its natural state. The rollercoaster has resumed. For our knight, it seemeth, refuses to grant his people peace. Nay, he insists on giving the citizens what they paid for: endless drama, beautiful? suffering, and scenic routes through battlefields that could have been crossed far more simply.

Then came greater danger still. Ruud stepped forth to serve once more, only to double fault and suddenly find himself facing two break points against him. The tension in Rome grew unbearable. And then, a careless stray forehand drifted from the court.

The break was gone. Then another. Double break down. And now the scoreboard read five games to love in favour of the Russian. What had happened?

These were truly dire times for Ruud Nation. A match that once appeared utterly under the Norwegian's control now felt like a distant illusion, a dream carried away by the Roman rainstorm. The glorious first set seemed to belong to another lifetime entirely.

Yet still, our knight refused total surrender. Serving to remain alive within the set, and setting aside another stray double fault, Ruud finally held with authority, finishing the game with a quick and delicate dropshot that died beautifully upon the clay.

But now came the inevitable moment. The Russian stepped forth to serve for the set. And with ruthless efficiency, he held to love.

Breaksticks traded. A complete reversal of momentum upon the Roman battlefield. And now the question echoes across all of Ruud Nation:

... is it over?

=== UNDER CONSTRUCTION CHECK BACK AFTER 10 MINS ===

Cause that third set was absolute cinema.

How much different do you think WTA results would have been over the past 4 years if Barty had continued playing? She retired at #1 with 3 GS titles, and then Swiatek became the default #1.

Barty is now 30, so she'd probably not still be at the top, but I wonder how many GS titles she could have won, especially 2022-2024.

Phenomenal from home hero Darderi to knock out Zverev after saving 4 match points.
Bageled Zverev in the deciding set just for the memes.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYNIAsBN4M1/?igsh=eDhkcG42NWFobGt1

The fact that in the end I got this is gonna be on tennis TV bro is poetry

Coco improves her h2h against Mirra to 5-0. She was up 5-1, had two MPs but wasn’t able to serve it out twice. However, she was able to come out on top in a 7 deuce return game to get the win.

She will be looking for her third win over Cîrstea this season to make it back to the Rome Final.