SportJournal.pictures, 18/05/2025
by Pepe Offside
Torino: Bublik vs Bu (yes, it sounds just like that)At the Circolo della Stampa, a noble temple of rackets and ridiculousness, two artists faced off: Alexander Bublik, the Kazakh who plays tennis like Gotham’s Joker, and Bu Yunchaokete, the Chinese player with a name that sounds like a microwave alarm. The result was a show somewhere between Shakespeare and The Pink Panther.
Bublik, true to form, opened the match with a double fault and a look that screamed “can I leave yet?”. Bu, on the other hand, responded with shots so flat they skimmed the net like gravity didn’t apply.
The crowd — or better said, the fifteen brave souls who paid a ticket worthy of an international flight — clapped between secret bites of hidden panini, because in Torino eating in the stands is banned… unless you do it with the serenity of a Japanese monk.
The match was as erratic as Bublik’s mood. One moment he hit a smash while gazing at the sky, the next he crouched down to talk to an ant. Bu held a stoic expression like a Terracotta warrior right up to match point. Final result: Bublik won, but we still wonder if he was acting the whole time.
Rome: Sinner vs Alcaraz, the future classic that arrived yesterday
Meanwhile, at the Foro Italico, Sinner and Alcaraz played a match that would’ve brought Rafa Nadal to tears… and Netflix to despair, as it struggles to script anything more epic.
The stadium, packed to the portable toilets, was buzzing. There was more adrenaline than in a brakeless rollercoaster. Every point was a battle. Alcaraz ran like someone owed him lunch, and Sinner responded with the calm face of a Tyrolean saint sent to restore order.
Both served missiles. Alcaraz smiled and talked to himself. Sinner countered in silence, hitting angled forehands sharp enough to slice an olive. The Italians yelled “Andiamo!”, the Spaniards “¡Vamos!”, as if it were the G7 of tennis passion.
After three hours of gladiators and physics-defying aces, the one who blinked least won: Carlos Alcaraz. The Foro exploded. People hugged, cried, and stopped complaining about stadium food for five whole minutes.
Sunday’s takeaway: in Italy, you can either laugh until your stomach hurts (Torino), or feel moved until you cry (Rome). But in both cases, tennis was pure art… or at least a show even Netflix wouldn’t dare to script.
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