Carlos Alcaraz wins his second straight French Open men's title after beating No. 1 Jack Sinner
Sinner, the top-ranked player, won the first two sets 6-4, 7-6 (4) before Alcaraz claimed the third set 6-4. Alcaraz was trailing 5-3, 40-0 in the fourth set before rallying past his rival, winning a tiebreaker 7-6 (3).
Sinner and Alcaraz share seven major titles, four for Alcaraz and three for Sinner, who is in the French Open final for the first time.
Sinner is on a 20-match winning streak in Grand Slam tournaments, after winning the U.S. Open and the Australian Open.
The 22-year-old Alcaraz owns a tour-leading 21-1 record on clay this year and has beaten the 23-year-old Sinner in their past four meetings.
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Lille's Opera House has gold leaf on the ceiling, the crimson carpet of an emperor's robe, and some fifty cameras pointing towards Tadej Pogačar. Sitting, blinking, in the world champion's jersey one day before the 2025 Tour de France, Pogačar only takes a moment to grow accustomed to his surroundings. Swiftly, he picks up his phone, turns his back to the room, and snaps a quick selfie. Advertisement 'Why did you do that?' is the first question he is asked. 'Funny,' he replies simply, with a boyish grin. In this way, as in many others, the cycling world is now at the 26-year-old's beck and call. Over the past five years, Pogačar has proven himself capable of winning almost any race on the sport's calendar — Grand Tours, spring classics, the world championship. He is arguably the first cyclist to have transcended the sport since Lance Armstrong. After taking a three-minute and 31-second lead over Jonas Vingegaard on Wednesday, he is the overwhelming favourite to win his fourth Tour de France. No rider will ever have done that at a younger age. Pogačar's physical ability is self-evident. But in a sport sometimes synonymous with intensity and detail, it is also the Slovenian's laidback nature that stands out — an essential lightness to his being, a head which does not hang heavy with the crown. It appears, certainly, that Pogačar's hyper-aggressive riding style stems from a kinship with risk which few other elite riders dare near. 'He's just playing in the sand like he's a kid,' says his friend and fellow Slovenian Matej Mohoric. 'Obviously he wants to win. Cycling is all he cares about. Not much else. But he just wants to wake up every day, ride his bike, and then wake up and go riding the next day. But he's never stressed about it.' This is the making of Tadej Pogačar — cycling's nonchalant superstar. On the morning of stage 10, Mirko and Marjeta Pogačar's camper van is parked in a lay-by, some seven kilometres from the summit of Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy. They make the climb later that day, watching Pogačar's attempts to gap Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel on its upper slopes. For most parents, this would be a stressful day. There are attacks everywhere and Tadej loses the yellow jersey, temporarily, to Ireland's Ben Healy. Not for Mirko and Marjeta. 'We were calm,' Marjeta says that evening. 'It was a nice day out.' Advertisement Far from the private jets that accompany the families of other elite sportspeople, they have driven 400km over the past 24 hours to see their son for 30 seconds. They first bought the camper van after his first Tour win in 2020, and still live in their children's childhood home. It could be any normal family on their summer holidays — Mirko managed a chair factory, while Marjeta taught French at the local school. Both now run the Tadej Pogačar Foundation. 'It was never our aim that one of our children would reach this level,' says Marjeta, two hours after the stage. 'We just wanted our children to be active, to have friends in different environments — that was our goal.' Part of Pogačar's upbringing was to understand the importance of hard work. His story begins with his father Mirko's — who, when growing up on a farm as a 14-year-old, experienced both of his own parents falling ill. It meant he had to take responsibility for the family alongside his brother at a very young age, and had no chance to play sport himself. 'So when Tadej was young, we wanted our children to also go and help out on the family farm,' Marjeta explains. She is the family spokesperson, though she and Mirko discuss the majority of answers before replying. 'When there were potatoes to pick, we'd go and help Mirko's brother in the field. It was important for the children to have experience of hard work, because it's very difficult, it's hard on your back, your legs, everything. It's painful. 'But he really enjoyed mowing grass in the garden, washing the car and bicycles. They had their jobs at home. It was a rule that the kids had to clean their bikes before races — it couldn't be dirty.' But before it was a bike, it was a unicycle. Tadej and his brother, Tilen, used to unicycle over to the family farm on those summer days, having been inspired by a neighbour and quickly growing obsessed. Advertisement 'They all loved unicycling,' remembers Marjeta. 'They were really good at it — they'd go down steps on them, up steps, too, and they'd ride along the tops of walls in the city. They'd jump up and jump down. I was never worried about them because they said it was safer than a normal bicycle. 'The first time they went training on a normal bicycle, I rode with them, but they were too strong. I didn't want to be a scared mum. I let them go.' This moment — Tadej's first proper ride — was not some preordained moment, a familial masterplan. He was simply following his older brother. As Marjeta explains, 'Tadej was always really talented at sport, while Tilen was more intellectual. He was very good at playing chess. He was also good at sports, but as soon as Tadej started to become as good as him, he would quit the sport. He started playing football. Then Tadej started playing football. 'Two years later, he went to play basketball. But then, Miha Koncilja, his first cycling coach, came to ask if Tilen could join the club. He said yes. So Tadej immediately wanted to do cycling, too, so he skipped basketball. 'Tilen wasn't as single-minded. He was always thinking: 'Is this work worth it? What if it doesn't work out?' But Tadej didn't do this. He went all in.' Their heroes were the Schleck brothers, Andy and Frank, whom he and Tilen looked up to as fellow racing siblings. 'Tilen was a very good rider, very fast,' Pogačar told UK newspaper The Times back in 2021. 'He always found a way to beat me. Every village sign, we sprinted to, and he won. Then, one day, when he was 16 or 17, (he) didn't want to do it any more. 'You are brothers, you have the same parents, the same talent. And there are little things that make a difference and you don't even know what they are. My brother is now the logistics guy for a haulage company in Ljubljana and enjoys his job. I grew up knowing he was better than me.' Advertisement It meant things would get competitive. The Pogačar household was filled with games, particularly self-imagined ones, along with the more typical cards and chess. When there were the typical moments of bickering, Marjeta says Tadej was desperate to play peacemaker. 'He was funny since his childhood when he was really young, maybe one or two years old,' she says. 'Sometimes he'd dance or sing, but he was sometimes also a little naughty, with his siblings, little things. 'But he was always cheering us up. Whenever anyone in the family was tired or there was tension, he wanted to break that feeling. He wanted us to have fun, to make the reconciliation. 'But it's very important in playing games to learn how to win and how to lose. He learned this also. He wasn't angry as long as he'd done his best. And after he finished second to Vingegaard, perhaps these habits — how to win, how to lose — came from his childhood into his life now, his current career.' Pogačar won plaudits for how he dealt with losing successive Tours in 2022 and 2023, acknowledging his rival's superiority. 'There couldn't be a better way to lose the Tour de France than this,' he said, having failed to shake Vingegaard from his wheel in 2022. 'I gave it all today, thinking of the GC. I will leave the race with no regrets.' As well as his experience of childhood games, perhaps another reason behind this, Marjeta suggests, is because as a young rider, Pogačar did not do much winning. 'I noticed he was very talented at sports when he was two years old,' she says. 'He taught himself to walk, he was very good at football. He could point to a spot on the wall as a small child and hit it exactly there. But we also noticed he found solutions that weren't necessarily obvious; imaginative ones. But at cycling? We didn't know immediately that he was talented. Advertisement 'When he went to race in Italy or in Berlin as a 16-year-old, we noticed he was doing quite well, but he didn't really begin to win until late. He was very small, a very tiny boy, and he wasn't successful against the bigger riders. He did everything he could to beat the older kids even with his disadvantage, but wasn't always disappointed if he wasn't first. 'It meant he didn't feel pressure to win — because he was never winning before.' For them, it was not until he was a 19-year-old riding in the Tour de l'Avenir that they quite realised the stakes at which their son was contending. Finally, he had begun to grow nerves. 'The first time we saw him a little afraid was before the Tour de l'Avenir, because there were some Colombian guys that were very good at racing. So I remember we spoke about it. I didn't know what this race meant to young cyclists. 'He explained it was like the Tour de France for young riders. And so I had to encourage him a little bit — to have faith in himself and to do his best.' Pogačar need not have worried. He won the GC ahead of Thymen Arensman and Gino Mader, with Colombian rivals Ivan Ramiro Sosa and Cristian Camilo Munoz down in sixth and 18th, respectively. At just 19, he could have competed in the Tour de l'Avenir for another four years. Joxean Fernandez Matxin, Pogačar's current sports manager at UAE Team Emirates, first saw Pogačar in 2017, back when he was scouting for the rival Soudal-Quickstep team. 'He was at the Radenska Llubljana team,' Matxin says. 'I went to watch a race as a scout at Quickstep, and I remember the place in Montauban. I remember Tadej arriving at this race alongside two experienced riders, a 32-year-old and a 34-year-old, and in the last 300 metres, he attacked to try to win. He got out the saddle, he didn't win, but you knew he was stronger, you knew he was at another level. Advertisement 'And after, I went to speak with Tadej. And I remember his laces and his shoes. His laces were just the laces of a normal person, his shoes were maybe four years old. And in that moment, I understood that this was a super good rider because there was so much margin for growth. He was chill, he wasn't professional — and we knew he was a pure talent.' UAE had their own eyes on Pogačar, who they signed to their development team just ahead of the Tour de l'Avenir. The next year, Matxin arrived at UAE, reuniting the pair. As a junior, Pogačar looked up to the likes of Irishman Dan Martin and Italian Fabio Aru — there are elements of both Martin's explosivity and Aru's ability on long, sustained efforts in Pogačar's riding, though in truth, he has now far eclipsed both. Just two years passed between the Tour de l'Avenir and his maiden Tour de France title in 2020 — only Egan Bernal has matched that feat. Incidentally, the Colombian's two victories took place in 2017 and 2019, the year before Pogačar in each case. Though Pogačar had won three stages of the previous year's Vuelta a España, his rise to Tour de France winner was meteoric, but the success brought one of the major challenges of his young career. His win came in dramatic circumstances, overturning the lead of fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic on the final racing day, a time trial up La Planche des Belles Filles. 'In Slovenia, it was sometimes difficult after his first Tour victory in 2020 because he beat Primoz,' says Marjeta. 'And there were many sad moments around this. Tadej wasn't happy that it played out this way; neither were we. 'Many people were angry with Tadej and sent him messages that weren't nice. But Tadej hadn't done anything — he hadn't hurt him, he didn't steal victory from Primoz. He was just stronger on the very last stage; it was a race.' But in dealing with this, Pogačar could take advantage of his ability to switch on and off. 'When he's with his teammates, he's dancing, he's funny,' says Matxin, from outside the UAE bus. 'But then he takes his helmet. Click. It's another Tadej.' 'He has a great ability to know when he has to concentrate and when he can take it easier,' adds Marjeta. 'I think he separates those things very well.' Advertisement Pogačar looks joyful in the race, but that is because concentration on the race is the joy itself, existence in the moment, the cut and thrust of tactics and the flight up the road. Even now, midway through his career, he insists on doing races for enjoyment, such as his desire to ride Paris-Roubaix earlier this year, which typically would have been considered far too dangerous for any Tour contender. He was on the wheel of eventual winner Mathieu van der Poel before overcooking a corner with 38km to go. 'It has been difficult in the past,' Pogačar told The Athletic in Lille. 'People always have opinions no matter what you say, no matter what you do. You cannot please everyone. But since I stopped paying so much attention, my life has been better. I'll try to speak with a smile on my face and try not to care too much about whatever happens next.' This Tour de France, Visma Lease-a-Bike began to target Pogačar mentally for the first time. There have been quarrels in feed zones, while the Slovenian was sufficiently antagonised by Visma's tactics after stage six to publicly criticise them, while he called Vingegaard and Matteo Jorgenson's attacks 'annoying' after stage 10. 'We try to put him under pressure day after day,' said Visma's Victor Campenaerts after that stage. 'Sometimes I have the impression he gets irritated, or his team gets irritated, because we try so hard.' Would their tactics work? Visma had their answer two days later, as Pogačar gained over two minutes on Vingegaard up the Hautacam. 'Riding the bike these last couple of years is like a fairytale to me,' he said from its summit. 'While I'm enjoying this sufferfest with the fans on the road, I can still go deep and have this level, this shape. 'I think once this fire goes out, I will probably decline, but right now is the peak of my career, for the last two or three years. I'll try to hold it as long as I can.'
