Alexander Zverev opened the French Open final with two double faults in a row. It took four hours and 19 minutes for Carlos Alcaraz to turn that gift into a trophy.
Alcaraz, 21, beat the German 6-3, 2-6, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 in Paris on Sunday. He is now the youngest player of the professional era to win Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces, adding Roland Garros to his 2022 US Open and 2023 Wimbledon wins.
A final that swung both ways
The Spaniard had chosen to return serve after winning the toss, hoping to break Zverev straight away. He did it in the first game, finishing a 40-40 point with a forehand return and a low cross-court backhand volley. He then dropped his own serve at the first chance, something that had happened to him in most of his matches at the tournament, but broke again in the fifth game and took the first set.
The wind rose as the afternoon went on, and with it the errors. In one gust Alcaraz sent a forehand into the stands, then lost his serve on the next point. He double-faulted away another game and Zverev took the second set 6-2.
The third set looked like Alcaraz’s. He led 4-2 and saved a break point with a drop shot and a backhand pass. Zverev answered by lofting high, looping balls into the wind to throw off the Spaniard’s rhythm, broke back and won the set 7-5.
Zverev had been in this spot before. In the 2020 US Open final he led Dominic Thiem by two sets to none and served for the title in the fifth. Thiem won.
Paris did not repeat it. Alcaraz broke for 2-0 in the fourth, clenched his fist, and a backhand drop shot later it was 4-0. He took the set 6-1. A trainer treated him for leg discomfort at a changeover, and the match went to a fifth set.
Fighting, not shining
The last set was not pretty. Alcaraz argued a few calls with the chair umpire and drew boos from a crowd that was heavily on his side. But he kept fighting and, at times, smiled, while Zverev looked sour and tense throughout. Alcaraz closed it out 6-2.
Bjorn Borg, a five-time champion at Roland Garros, handed him the trophy. “We suffered a lot with the injury in the previous weeks,” Alcaraz said. He thanked the people around him: “I call them a team, but they are family.” And he recalled his school days: “When I got out of school I would run to turn on the TV at home to watch this tournament, and now I have this trophy.”
His coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, watched from the stands. Ferrero won the title in 2003, the last Spaniard to do so before Rafael Nadal took over the tournament. Zverev, 27, is still looking for his first major.
