His win marks yet another installment in the rivalry between the world’s top two men’s players
Sinner caught an early break in the first game, and held his own serve to expose the limited weaknesses in his opponent’s game. The second set then opened with Alcaraz fighting back in the first game; but the Italian remained insatiable and broke at 3-3 to land a decisive victory.
Sinner and Alcaraz have shared the four Grand Slam titles this year; Sinner taking the Australian Open and Wimbledon leaving Alcaraz with Roland-Garros and the most recent, the US Open.
Although the tournament is not an ATP-sanctioned event and does not affect the players standings on the ATP rankings, both Alcaraz and Sinner gave it their all on the day of the finals. Alcaraz currently leads their head to head in ATP matches with 10 wins to Sinner’s 5.
During the post match interview on-court, Sinner stated, “It is a huge pleasure and honour to share the court with him.”
He also noted that the two of them maintain a good relationship outside of their highly publicised rivalry, “At the same time, you want to get better as a player and you need rivalries in the sport. So it's nice to have a great rivalry and more importantly a great friendship off the court.”
The winner of the exhibition tournament takes home an impressive $4.5m in prize money, in addition to a $1.5m participation fee. The lucrative winnings are proof of Saudi Arabia’s continued interest in investing in sporting events which attract new viewers and deals with streaming service providers such as Netflix.
However, this does not come without its fair share of criticism. Saudi Arabia has previously been accused of “sportswashing”; using high profile events and athletes to garner positive media attention against a backdrop of human rights abuses and restrictions on free speech.