Jannik Sinner defeated by his generational rival Carlos Alcaraz in the final of the ATP 500 in Beijing at the end of a wonderful battle lasting almost 3 and a half hours. Final show on Chinese soil: the two tennis players who have shared the four seasonal Slams are currently proving to be the strongest in the world by a long way.

The Spaniard prevails with a score of 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 in 3 hours and 23 minutes . A match played at a frenetic pace by both.

Sinner often seems overwhelmed by the explosive tennis of a dazzling Alcaraz, but he doesn't give up. Alcaraz starts better and immediately takes a 5-2 lead, but the world number 1 comes back and drags the first set to a tiebreak, where he cancels two set points with an ace and a sensational return and wins 8-6 .

In the second set, the turning point came in the eighth game, in which Sinner had two break points cancelled that would have brought him to 5-3 and serve and immediately afterwards he was broken by making too many errors .

Alcaraz takes over, closes the second set 6-4 and goes to 3-1 in the third, with two break points to go to 4-1 with a double break. Sinner cancels them, then places the counterbreak in the eighth game and the match is back to parity. Another hard-fought game at 5-5, with Sinner canceling a break point and holding. It then goes to the tiebreak, where Jannik immediately goes ahead 3-0 but then doesn't score another point. Alcaraz wins 7-3 and thus closes a show final by winning the fourth title of the season, the sixteenth of his career. Sinner instead stops at 16 titles, 6 in 2024 .

Success for the Italians in doubles, with Bolelli-Vavassori winning the final against Heliovaara-Patten 4-6, 6-3, 10-5 .

(Unioneonline/L)