Nineteen-year-old Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, for some time now described as a “phenomenon” or “sensation,” tonight added Grand Slam hardware and the world number-one ranking to those superlatives, beating Norway’s Casper Ruud 6-4, 2-6, 7-6, 6-3 to capture the men’s singles title at the 2022 U.S. Open in New York.
Every Grand Slam winner handles the moment of victory in their own way—from Björn Borg’s legendary sinking to his knees to Daniil Medvedev’s bizarre attempt to imitate a soccer video game goal celebration. Alcaraz collapsed to the court, threw his hands over his eyes, and briefly curled up in a fetal position, spending a few moments alone with his emotions amidst the roaring crowd of more than 23,000 tennis fans.
“It’s something that I dreamed of since I was a kid,” Alcaraz said during the trophy presentation in Arthur Ashe Stadium at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. “To be number one in the world, to be the champion of a Grand Slam, is something that I worked really, really hard for.”
If a Grand Slam has been something that many people have predicted, even expected from him, the struggle and the fight he displayed throughout the two weeks of the Open showed that it’s not something he’s taking for granted. Alcaraz is the first player in six years to have faced down a match point en route to the title, and the first man in 30 years to face five-set matches in the fourth round, quarterfinals, and semifinals before ultimately winning the tournament. He’s also the youngest Grand Slam champion since Rafael Nadal’s first French Open in 2005 at the age of 19 and the youngest U.S. Open winner since Pete Sampras, also 19 when he won in 1990. (Just how young is Alcaraz? He graciously acknowledged the anniversary of the September 11 attacks before saying anything after the match—but he wasn’t yet born when they happened.)
Ruud, meanwhile, has nothing to hang his head about: He becomes the world’s second-ranked player after a stellar season that saw him make the finals of the French Open (losing to Rafael Nadal) as well as in New York.
With Nadal exiting this Open early, Novak Djokovic still refusing to get immunized and thus unable to play here, and Roger Federer on a lengthy injury-related spate away from the game, does Alcaraz’s victory mark a changing of the guard? Only time will tell.
The past two weeks of the Open, though, tell us their own story: With the first week featuring the Serena Williams farewell tour and the second week giving us hard-fought, hard-won matches across the board, the crowds in Flushing set a new attendance record of more than 776,000 total visitors, almost 40,000 more than the previous record.
If you’ve seen Alcaraz play, you know how thrilling he is to behold: how fast, how fearsome, how fiery. So we’ll simply say this: If we’re now entering the Alcaraz era? We are here for it.