For much of this set, it has felt like Alcaraz has been the one who has had to fight to win his own service games. But, after the Spaniard breezed through the last game, Sinner is having to struggle now.

The Italian sends Alcaraz back and forth along the baseline before finishing him off with an easy volley, but nets to level the game at 15-15.

Alcaraz plays a poor drop shot on the next point and Sinner comes to the net to sweep it past him. But once again he is pegged back when Alcaraz’s next drop shot is more accurate, and Sinner can’t get back to the resulting lob.

Sinner’s response is to send a second serve out wide at 117 mph which Alcaraz can do nothing about, and he rounds out the game with an ace.

That will do nicely for Alcaraz.

The champion races through a service game, finishing it off with a brilliant ace down the middle.

This set is drifting a bit, but we are now approaching the business end.

We’ve just seen one of the shots of the match there from Jannik Sinner.

On game point, he comes to the net and Alcaraz plays it too close to his body. The Italian’s response is to play the ball through his legs and return. Unfortunately for him, he followed that up by missing an easy volley.

No matter, though, as he takes the game after it goes to deuce.

Yesterday’s women’s final was over in just 57 minutes as Iga Świątek swept aside Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0. We’ve been playing for twice that length of time in this men’s final and are still not even close to finding a champion.

Remember that Sinner and Alcaraz contested an epic, five-and-a-half-hour French Open final last month — the longest in the tournament history. Could we be set for another marathon match between these two?

It certainly looks less straightforward for Alcaraz compared to his Wimbledon victory over Novak Djokovic last year.

Sinner, buoyed by winning the second set, has settled well and perhaps looks more comfortable than his opponent at the moment. But this is tennis, and things can always change in the blink of an eye.

That game passes by without much drama and Alcaraz will like it that way.

You feel there is just a small lull in proceedings here with both men holding their service games without much danger.

Two serves that Alcaraz can do nothing about to begin the fourth game of the third set, followed by another big forehand at the net from Sinner.

The crowd at Centre Court offers its support to the Spaniard, but his shot on the run drops wide and Sinner holds to love.

An automated line-calling system has replaced human line judges at Wimbledon this year, and it’s fair to say the transition hasn’t been entirely smooth.

Even before the first matches got underway, many felt that parting with line umpires — a mainstay of Wimbledon’s 148-year history — would make the tournament poorer.

“At the end of the day, a tennis match is sport, and sport is about people,” Pauline Eyre, a former line judge who officiated at Wimbledon on 16 occasions, told CNN Sports. “And I don’t think technology necessarily makes everything better. I don’t think it’s improving the quality of the line-calling, because line-calling was always excellent.”

During the tournament itself, there have been teething issues with the new technology. The most notable came during the fourth-round contest between Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Great Britain’s Sonay Kartal, when the electronic line-calling system was turned off.

Wimbledon organizers later explained that a “human error” had resulted in no call being made when Kartal hit a backhand long, but the incident ultimately cost Pavlyuchenkova the game when the point was replayed.

An apology was later made to the players, and organizers removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking.

The technology also faltered during last Tuesday’s quarterfinal between American Taylor Fritz and Russian Karen Khachanov. With Fritz serving in the fourth set, the system called “fault” mid-point, forcing umpire Louise Azemar-Engzell to intervene.

It’s not been unusual to hear rogue calls from the automated system at matches over the course of the tournament, too. “Out” and “fault” calls have sometimes been heard at strange moments in the match, causing confusion among players and laughs from spectators.

Read more here:

Sinner is probably the man looking marginally better out there at the moment, but Alcaraz isn’t too far behind him in terms of performance level.

He holds again, looking grateful as Sinner’s return goes slightly too deep.

It would be too reductive to say that Jannik Sinner’s tactic has just been to absolutely crush the ball – but it’s certainly been a weapon for the Italian.

He and Alcaraz get the better of a long rally each to put us at 15-15, before the Spaniard’s return of serve goes long. Sinner’s next serve is an ace, and he comes to the net on the following point to sweep a big forehand beyond Alcaraz.

That was almost a repeat of the start of the second set for Alcaraz, when he was broken in his first service game.

He finds himself 15-40 and facing two early break points at the start of this third set. A huge ace brought him to 30-40 and he kept the pressure on to wrap up what is a hugely important game for the world No. 2.

Jannik Sinner so rarely shows signs of emotion on the tennis court, but he can’t help celebrating while leveling the match.

After a brilliant scramble to get to the net and fire a backhand past Alcaraz, he raises his racket into the air and soaks up the applause of the crowd. Several fist pumps follow as he goes 30-15 and 40-15 ahead, then one more when he whips a superb forehand winner across the court.

Having lost the first set, it’s a brilliant response from the world No. 1.

That’s just excellent from Jannik Sinner.

The first point looked to be Carlos Alcaraz’s, but the world No. 1 somehow gets back from way deep to make it all the way back to the net and get the Centre Court crowd on its feet.

The Italian nets to make it 15-15, but an excellent second serve drags Alcaraz wide and the world No. 2 can’t get back to defend his opponent’s follow-up.

Sinner is playing some excellent tennis now and hits a fantastic forehand down the line for 40-15, followed by an equally impressive cross-court forehand on the run for his most important point of the match.

We’re level again!

Must-need hold of serve from Alcaraz and he didn’t make any mistake.

It almost felt like both players were just getting rid of that game in order to save energy for the next one.

Sinner is now serving for the set, with Alcaraz needing to break to stay in it.

After a couple of hard-fought holds, this one is much easier for Sinner as he finds himself up 40-0 within 75 seconds.

He rounds it out with an ace and allows himself the faintest of smiles.

Big game coming up now.

That looked to be an easy service game for Alcaraz as he cruised into a 40-0 lead.

But his concentration once again went missing, allowing Sinner to bring it back to deuce.

The Spaniard looked nervy but managed to save the game with a strong serve out wide that his opponent couldn’t return.

These players are so evenly matched, the outcome of this final is still impossible to call.

But here are some statistics perhaps tilting the contest in Carlos Alcaraz’s favor: He’s never lost in any of his five grand slam final appearances and has won each of his past five matches against Jannik Sinner.

Overall, he leads 8-4 in their head-to-head, most recently edging past his rival in a thrilling and record-breaking French Open final last month.

So far, all the signs point toward this match becoming another classic. Alcaraz took the first set, but Sinner still leads by a break in the second.

Credit to Jannik Sinner – he is really being made to work to hold onto his second-set lead.

The world No. 1 goes long after another lively rally to make it 15-30 but responds well again, going up 40-30 with a serve Alcaraz could not return.

He then gets a stroke of luck as his shot jumps up off the tape, leaving Alcaraz no chance to make it up from the baseline.

A loud pop rings around Centre Court, followed by an object appearing close to Jannik Sinner just before he serves. On closer inspection, it’s a champagne cork.

The world No. 1 disposes of it, but neither the crowd nor the chair umpire are particularly happy. Whoever chose to tuck into their bubbly and fire the cork onto the court is met by a chorus of boos from spectators and a reminder from the umpire not to open champagne during service games.

Sinner, however, seems unfazed: he went on to hold serve and take a 3-1 lead. A very Wimbledon moment here on Centre Court.

Alcaraz wasted no time at all in wrapping up that game, instantly putting Sinner back under pressure.

The Spaniard now needs to find a way to break his opponent’s serve. He came close last time and looks ready to do so again here.

Pristine, crisp and all-white: Tennis whites have been a tradition dating back centuries. The distinctive look has not only made the racket sport stand out, but it has also become a sartorial mainstay off the courts, too.

And even though most of the major tournaments have done away with hueless uniformity, Wimbledon, the very first of them, has remained strict in its policy (as have many private clubs around the world). The prestigious championship even clamped down on the rule more than a decade ago, prohibiting colorful accents that had become increasingly common — the year after Roger Federer’s now-infamous pair of orange-soled sneakers were banned after his first round in 2013.

The rules once called for “predominantly white” outfits, allowing some competitors to play with color combinations, such as Serena Williams’ tribute to Wimbledon treat strawberries and cream in 2010. But the crackdown changed the wording to “almost entirely white,” per the organizers: no off-white, no panels of color, no varying colorways on sneakers. The only recent loosening of the rules was in 2023 – to allow women to wear dark-colored shorts on the court following criticisms that the rules weren’t accommodating for menstruation leaks — and this year to allow Portuguese players to wear tributes to deceased Liverpool soccer star Diogo Jota.

But why did tennis whites become the standard? You can read our explainer on it here to find out.

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