A Spaniard reigns in Paris once more.
Carlos Alcaraz defeated Alexander Zverev in five fitful, fretful sets on Sunday to win the French Open for the first time, conquering the Parisian clay just as he conquered the manicured lawns of Wimbledon last summer and the concrete jungle of Flushing Meadows in 2022.
The 21-year-old becomes the youngest man to win grand slam titles on all three surfaces, overtaking his compatriot Rafael Nadal, who was a year older than Alcaraz when he completed his own set of multi-surface slams at the 2009 Australian Open.
Yet it was joining the pantheon of great Spanish champions in Paris that afforded Alcaraz the greatest satisfaction. Heading that elite coterie, of course, is Nadal, the record 14-time champion, but the Spanish tradition also includes Alcaraz’s coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, as well as Carlos Moyà and Albert Costa, to name only the most recent winners. Following his semi-final win over Jannik Sinner, Alcaraz namechecked them all, recalling how he used to run home from school to watch Roland Garros on TV as a child. Now he too is part of Spanish tennis folklore.
“Winning your first in every grand slam is always super special,” said Alcaraz after his 6-3, 2-6, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 victory. “But in Roland Garros, knowing all the Spanish players who have won this tournament and being able to put my name on that massive list is something unbelievable. I dreamed about being in this position since I started playing tennis, since I was five, six years old, so it’s a great feeling.”
With Alcaraz, “feeling” is always a loaded term, and the rhythms of this final were largely dictated by the Murcian’s ability – and, for long stretches, his inability – to express his virtuosity; to find good feel on his shots, and good feelings in his mind.
The occasion weighed heavily on both men initially, the prevailing mood made manifest by an error-strewn exchange of breaks and a frustrated early gesture from Alcaraz, who appeared troubled by the lofty trajectory of the 6ft 6in Zverev’s serve. Tricky at the best of times, the German’s thunderous delivery was made even more so by a swirling wind that, for much of the afternoon, had the flagpoles above Court Philippe Chatrier rattling on overtime. On more than one occasion, both players shanked balls into the crowd.
Yet even in that challenging opening phase, Alcaraz showed flashes of magic, feathering drop shots and angling away volleys, and in the fifth game he secured another breakthrough, one that owed more to his own range and intelligence than any anxiety on Zverev’s part. Slowing the tempo with one-handed slices, using looped, spinny groundstrokes to disturb the German’s timing, and ripping forehands when they were least expected, Alcaraz utilised changes of pace and height to claim a love break. It was a passage that established a useful tactical template for the third seed.
For now, though, there was no further need for such measures; suddenly Alcaraz was on a tear. He claimed a third break with an acutely angled forehand winner to seal the set, which Zverev ended with a success rate of just 48% behind his first serve and 38% on the second. They were desperate numbers for the German, and when Alcaraz survived a testing opening service game at the start of the second set, fending off three break points after leading 40-0, you half wondered if Zverev had missed an opportunity that would not come again. For all his difficulties, the 27-year-old had actually been striking the ball sweetly up to that point. Yet becoming embroiled in a shot-making contest with Alcaraz is rarely a recipe for success. Zverev’s growing frustration was evident in the beseeching looks he cast up towards his support team.
But then came a sea change.
With Alcaraz serving at 2-2, a sequence of errors culminated with a mighty mishit from the Spaniard and a break for Zverev. Two games later, a double fault cost him another. Now it was Zverev racing through the gears – incisive at the net, discovering fresh potency off the ground, his serve wide to the deuce court, struck with lethal accuracy throughout, all but unplayable. He would finish the set with just four unforced errors.
With the match level and Alcaraz labouring to stay on serve in the early stages of the third, it seemed possible it might be Zverev’s day after all. It invariably has been of late. He arrived in his second grand slam final unbeaten in a month and riding a 12-match winning streak that began in Rome, where he won his first Masters title in almost three years. In Paris, he had met every challenge head on, defeating Nadal in the opening round, surviving back-to-back five-setters against Tallon Griekspoor and Holger Rune, and denying an (admittedly ailing) Casper Ruud a third consecutive title shot. At 19 hours and 27 minutes, Zverev’s path to the final was the longest since records began in 1991.
Nor was that all.
On Friday morning at the Tiergarten district court in Berlin, Zverev reached an out-of-court settlement with his former girlfriend Brenda Patea, the mother of his child, over domestic abuse allegations that he has consistently and unequivocally denied. Under the terms of the settlement, he was obliged to pay €200,000 (£170,000), with €50,000 going to the state and the remainder to non-profit organisations.
Crucially, the case was discontinued rather than determined, with no decision made about guilt or innocence. By Friday evening, however, Zverev was declaring that it was time to move on. He certainly appeared to have done. “I never, ever want to hear another question about the subject again,” he told the press corps. On and off the court, Zverev clearly felt he had his ducks in a row, whatever the wider public view.
Alcaraz, meanwhile, appeared to have no such clarity. His third-set performance flattered only to deceive. Having lost 14 straight points against serve, he unexpectedly broke to love and went on to establish a 5-2 lead, his game flowing freely once more. But then he stalled as abruptly as he had surged, losing five games in a row to fall two sets to one down. By the end of the third set, the Spaniard was in uncharacteristically testy mood, complaining vociferously about the state of the court.
“Do you think that’s normal?” Alcaraz demanded of the chair umpire, Renaud Lichtenstein. “Playing in the final of a grand slam? On a clay court, and it seems like a hard court? It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable.”
Novak Djokovic voiced similar complaints in his last-16 win over Francisco Cerúndolo, where he fell and suffered a knee injury that required surgery, and from courtside a patch of limestone was clearly visible through the clay. Even so, such outbursts are vanishingly rare where Alcaraz is concerned. His disgruntlement offered a reflection of his inability to summon his muse more consistently.
As his achievements suggest, however, the Spaniard is more than just a gifted shot-maker. Alcaraz understands his game, and he believes in its virtues. He arrived in Paris lightly cooked after struggling with a forearm injury that allowed him to play just one warm-up tournament on clay, and once again sported the protective sleeve on his arm that he has worn throughout the fortnight. Yet he always had confidence that his game would be there when he needed it. So it was. He would drop just three more games.
“I consider myself a player who doesn’t need too many matches to get [up to] 100%,” said Alcaraz. “I had a really good week here in Paris, practising with good players. I felt really well, playing sets, moving, hitting my shots before the tournament began. Obviously, every match that I’ve played, I was getting better and better.
“I believed in myself in every round of every day, and to the last ball of today’s match.”
That perseverance was clear when Alcaraz took a medical timeout at 4-1 in the fourth set to receive treatment on his left leg. Briefly, the mind wandered back to last year’s semi-final against Novak Djokovic, when his challenge was fatally undermined by cramp. But Alcaraz is a different player now, firmer of both mind and body. He rose from his chair to break, and minutes later served out the set to force a decider.
There was to be one more twist. Having suffered an early break in the fifth set, Zverev was dismayed by an overrule from the umpire after Alcaraz, facing the second of four break points, had a second serve called out. A Hawk-Eye graphic shown on TV suggested the German may have had a point, but the technology is not currently used on clay.
“I heard that at 2-1 the second serve was out from the Hawk-Eye data,” said Zverev, who had won 10 of his previous 11 deciding sets at Roland Garros. “If I break back there, I have break chances in the next service game, a fifth set can go the other way. But it is what it is. He played fantastic, he played better than me in the fourth and fifth sets.”
That much was undeniable. As destiny beckoned, Alcaraz showed absolute conviction. It was a matter of instinct; of feel and of feelings; of qualities that are hard to coach.
“Sometimes I do whatever [my team] tell me, and sometimes it depends on my feelings in the moment,” said Alcaraz, who has lost just once in 13 matches after being taken to a fifth set. “But I’m trying in that moment just to be aggressive, just to go for it, playing my style, go to the net, hitting drop shots, hitting big shots. Because if I lose it, if I miss it, my feelings are really good.
“It doesn’t matter if I lose, it doesn’t matter if I miss it, because when I go for it, the feelings are much better than if I go defensive and lose it anyway.”
On Sunday night, Alcaraz’s feelings were the best.