Set your DVRs, fire up your laptops—or, better yet, start making those WFH arrangements for tomorrow: At 8:45 am ET on Friday, tennis’s heir apparent, Carlos Alcaraz, faces off against 22-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic, the sport’s only currently playing member of the so-called Big Three. (Reminder: Federer retired; Nadal’s recovering from surgery and will likely sit out the remainder of the season.) At stake: The state of men’s tennis. It’s young (Alcaraz just turned 20) vs. old (well, pro-tennis old: Djokovic is 36), and the reigning Australian Open champion (Djokovic) vs. the reigning US Open champion (Alcaraz). And while the season’s still in early swing, it could very well be the match of the year.
Why isn’t this the final? Fair question: In seeding the players going into the tournament, the French Open considers only the players’ current ranking, not how well that player generally performs on clay—and with Daniil Medvedev thus seeded second and placed on the opposite side of the draw from the first (Alcaraz) and third (Djokovic) seeds, the die was thus cast for tomorrow’s match. (Medvedev went on to suffer a shock upset in the tourney’s first round at the hands of Brazilian qualifier Thiago Seyboth Wild.)
So who’s going to win? Ha! That’s beyond our pay grade. Alcaraz has utterly obliterated his five opponents en route to this semifinal, while Djokovic has—in somewhat trademark style, it must be said—merely done what’s necessary to advance. In their only head-to-head match so far, at last year’s Madrid tournament, Alcaraz emerged the come-from-behind winner after three very tight sets. But suffice to say that this one is much bigger—nothing less than a clash of titans, a best-of-five-sets battle to determine the standard-bearer of modern tennis. You’ll want to see this one. (Sorry, we almost forgot: The winner of this match plays the winner of tomorrow’s other semifinal—Alexander Zverev vs. Carlos Ruud—for the title on Sunday.)
As for the women’s final on Saturday at 9 am ET: What seemed destined to be the #1 seed vs. the #2 seed was disassembled in spectacular fashion in today’s first semifinal, which saw unseeded, 43rd-ranked Karolina Muchova win 20 of the match’s final 24 points in a spectacular comeback to bring down second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka. She’ll play the heavily favored first-seeded Iga Swiatek for the title—but it’s worth noting that Muchova is 5–0 against top-three opponents, with four of those wins coming at majors.
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