It's history

I don't know if you like tennis. It doesn't really matter, because what happened in Paris last Sunday, in the Roland Garros final, goes far beyond tennis and any sport . It has a different, much larger dimension.

Roland Garros is one of the biggest tournaments in the world. It's to tennis what Notre Dame Cathedral is to Gothic architecture: an institution, almost a temple. It's been played since 1891. It's incredibly tough. Last Sunday's final was played by two very young players: 23-year-old Italian Jannik Sinner and 22-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz. They've known each other since they were kids. They're now considered the two best tennis players in the world, and the match in Paris explains why.

The boys played for five and a half hours, the longest in the entire history of the tournament. They exchanged more than two thousand balls. The intensity, emotion, dedication, technical perfection, inspiration, creativity, and, to put it simply, the breathtaking beauty that both created in that extremely long battle is unparalleled by any other final played at the tournament since the 19th century . Sunday's match was, in the opinion of the vast majority of living tennis players, one of the most beautiful tennis matches ever seen; the sport has been played since the Middle Ages; Shakespeare speaks of it. That match is comparable to the 2008 Wimbledon final , when Nadal beat the Swiss Federer in another legendary contest lasting almost five hours. Or to the 1980 final, when Björn Borg defeated John McEnroe. And, at most, to four or five more matches.

Alcaraz won, but either of them could have won and it would have been completely fair. Because the key is this: it was much more than a tennis match. It was an immense example of personal growth, mutual learning, tenacity, sacrifice, and nobility of heart. Sinner and Alcaraz are two gifted individuals, two geniuses, no one disputes that; but they never play against other rivals with the unprecedented perfection they achieve when they compete against each other.

What happens is that, in addition to competing, they teach each other. They make each other better. They polish each other. There was a moment (the ninth game of the fourth set) when the Italian had three match points. If he put even one of those three balls out of Alcaraz's reach, just one, he would win the match and the tournament. And we all watched in that instant, stupefied, as Alcaraz raised his fist, impetuously, as if he were winning. Well, the Spaniard overcame those three deadly balls… and ended up winning. He didn't give up, not even in the most extreme circumstances. Sinner did exactly the same thing for those five and a half hours.

That's the most important thing, much more than the result. That's what they teach each other. More than a sporting match, what we saw was part of a dialogue the two boys began several years ago and that will surely last many more; a dialogue in which both learn and improve. They will play many more times; sometimes one will win and sometimes the other will, as is natural. But this extraordinary final was an event that will be remembered for decades and that children who begin to play tennis will study. In this world that seems to be falling apart, morally crushed as we are by the massacre in Gaza, by the war in Ukraine, by the growing rise of the far right; in this time when Spanish politics makes you want to vomit, populated by characters who seem straight out of Goya's dark paintings, two kids took up tennis in Paris, and it wasn't just that they gave it their all; they gave the world an unprecedented example of effort, tenacity, honesty, and even chivalry.

It was more, much more than a great tennis match. It was history. And a lesson for all of us. May we never forget it, even if we don't like tennis.