Alicante, 2019: The First Match That Started Alcaraz and Sinner’s Rivalry

“We’re going to take you back in time,” begins Pete Odgers in his commentary of the very first match between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. That first meeting did not come at a major or an ATP 250. It came on the ATP Challenger Tour in Alicante in April 2019.

The setting was modest. The crowd was small enough that, as the contemporary account noted, you could count how many people were in the stands. The match pitched a 15-year-old Alcaraz against a 17-year-old Sinner. At the time Sinner was ranked 319th in the world and Alcaraz did not even have an ATP ranking.

For perspective the clash was compared to early-career showings in other sports: the equivalent of watching Nolan Ryan take the mound for the Single-A Greenville Mets or Mike Tyson’s first fight in Albany, N.Y. Observers described that handful of fans as some of the luckiest tennis supporters in the world, because they saw two future stars intersect at the very start of their journeys.

Six years later the two occupy the summit of the men’s game as No. 1 and No. 2 in the world. Their next collision could take place this weekend at the ATP Finals in Turin, a long way from the quiet Alicante court where their rivalry began.

The early match shows unformed strokes and different appearances: a younger Alcaraz and a Sinner whose game and look were still evolving. There was even a wry note about appearance: what would 15-year-old Alcaraz thought about a platinum blonde ’do?

For those who want to see the origin story, the full 2019 match is available to stream in full. The first meeting remains revealing and compelling because it captures two players at the outset of careers that have since raced to the top. (Spoiler alert: Alcaraz prevails in a final set.)