Jannik Sinner has gone all the way to the final in his first tournament back from a three-month doping ban. And Carlos Alcaraz is waiting for him in the Italian Open title match. “Normally when we play each other the level is very high,

The two young rivals have won the last five grand slam titles, with Sinner winning three in a row on the hard-courts of the Australian Open and the US Open and Alcaraz conquering the other surfaces by winning the French Open and Wimbledon.

A couple of weeks in Rome that started with the return of the prodigal son and then took in the election of a new Pope will have a fittingly blockbuster ending: the world’s two best male tennis players facing off for the Italian Open title.