Germany’s perennial tennis bridesmaid Alexander Zverev will get another shot at a maiden grand slam title in this year’s Roland-Garros final.
The world No.3 – the only top-five player in the men’s or women’s draw to reach the semi-finals – progressed to his fourth major final, and second in Paris, with a 7-5, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Czechia’s marathon man Jakub Mensik across three-plus hours.
Zverev will face 10th seed Flavio Cobolli in the final after fellow Italian Matteo Arnaldi withdrew before their semi-final with a viral illness. It will be Cobolli’s first grand slam final.
The last player to receive a semi-final walkover at a major was Australia’s Nick Kyrgios at Wimbledon in 2022.
“It’s amazing the way [Mensik] played these last two weeks. He played so many unbelievable players, and I knew he was going to be the toughest challenge that I had so far. I managed, I won, I’m happy,” Zverev said.
“He started playing amazing in the third set, he really stepped up another level, but this is a grand slam, this is best-of-five-set matches. You know things are going to happen. Opponents are going to play better. You have to deal with it. You have to manage it.
“I did, and I hope to play another great match on Sunday.”
Arnaldi played 18 sets across 17 hours and 42 minutes to reach his first major quarter-final, advancing to the semi-finals when another Italian, Matteo Berrettini, retired due to a hip injury while trailing 7-5, 5-2.
The 25-year-old spent almost two hours longer than any other player to reach the last eight at any grand slam since the ATP Tour began recording match times in 1991.
Roland-Garros has been Zverev’s most successful grand slam, given he also made the quarter-finals in 2018-19 and three consecutive semi-finals from 2021-23 – but it has also been a source of great heartache.
He lost the 2024 Roland-Garros title match to Carlos Alcaraz from two-sets-to-one up, after he sustained a full rupture of his right ankle ligaments mid-match against Rafael Nadal in what was shaping as a classic semi-final two years earlier.
That serious ankle setback ended Zverev’s 2022 season and added to a tale of woe as he tries to shake his unwanted tag as the best men’s player without a major singles title.
Time was running out for the 29-year-old, whose career has overlapped the “Big Three” era of Novak Djokovic, Nadal and Roger Federer, and the new generation of Jannik Sinner and Alcaraz, but he might end up being the last man standing in a wild Roland-Garros fortnight.
Zverev, who won an Olympic gold medal in singles at Tokyo in 2021, became the title favourite when Sinner then Djokovic shockingly exited the tournament on successive days last week.
Those results meant the towering German star had a friendly run through the draw. World No.27 Mensik, who has been as high as 12 in the world, and 19-year-old up-and-comer Rafael Jodar were the highest-ranked opponents he has played.
However, Mensik offered a genuine threat to Zverev.
The 20-year-old rising Czech left the court in a wheelchair after his near-five-hour triumph over Argentine Mariano Navone in the second round when suffering from full-body cramps.
Mensik was given little chance against Australia’s Alex de Minaur in the next round, particularly once he dropped the first set 6-0, but he blitzed the No.8 seed across the next three sets. He proceeded to eliminate Andrey Rublev in five sets, then ended teenager Joao Fonseca’s run in the quarter-finals.
Mensik also started well against Zverev, and will rue not capitalising on three break points, including two in a row, in the eighth game of the opening set.
His best chance came on the third of them – after Zverev missed his first serve – but he sent a makeable forehand long, then blew a golden opportunity on the next point when he dumped a mid-court forehand into the net with his rival vulnerable at the net.
Zverev gleefully escaped, then benefited from a poor Mensik service game soon after.
The Czech double-faulted twice to fall 15-30 behind at five-all, and Zverev punished a poor drop shot from Mensik on break point to take control of the set.
The second set was a procession.
At 198 centimetres, Zverev is one of the best servers on tour, and he dropped just one first-serve point while breaking Mensik in the third and seventh games of the set with an aggressive brand of tennis.
Mensik appeared to be barely hanging on in the early stages of the third set when he requested an off-court medical timeout for a neck issue that may have contributed to a spate of double faults at inopportune moments.
But against the run of play, he produced two excellent drop shots to break Zverev for the first time and snatch a 4-2 lead.
Mensik’s all-court play was a key feature of his performance across the entire fortnight, and he unleashed a series of serve-volleys that even Pat Rafter would have been proud of as he clinched the third set. But his comeback bid derailed on one such point early in the fourth.
One point from holding for one-all, Mensik fluffed a low volley before committing back-to-back backhand errors, the second a routine miss off a mishit Zverev return to fall 0-2 behind.
Zverev never gave him another opening.
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