In the three weeks since Rafael Nadal limped out of the Italian Open, the eyes of the tennis world have been on his chronically injured left foot. On Friday at Roland Garros, the focus shifted abruptly to Alexander Zverev’s right ankle.
Deep into the second set of a contest of mesmerising quality and drama, Zverev fell awkwardly after lunging to retrieve a forehand. As the German crashed to the court, screaming and writhing in agony, the seriousness of the situation was immediately apparent. Nadal swiftly made his way over to check on his wounded rival, looking on with concern as Zverev, his clothing caked in clay and his features still contorted in anguish, was helped into a wheelchair and escorted off court. Ten minutes later, Zverev returned on crutches to shake hands with the chair umpire. Nadal was through to his 14th French Open final. Never will his passage to the last Sunday have felt less joyous.
It was a desperately cruel conclusion to what had been an utterly absorbing match. With just over three hours gone and only one set completed, the contest was poised to go into a second-set tiebreak with Nadal leading 7-6 (10-8), 6-6. So hard-fought had the exchanges been, so intense the focus and commitment of both men, it looked as though the battle would rage late into the evening. Instead, it ended with the third-seeded Zverev sharing a warm embrace with Nadal before departing to a standing ovation. As he left, the 25-year-old waved to the crowd with his crutches. After a troubled year on and off the court, he will rarely have felt more public warmth. How he will wish it had been under more auspicious circumstances.
“Very tough, no, and very sad for him, honestly,” Nadal told Mats Wilander in his on-court interview afterwards. “He was playing an unbelievable tournament. He’s a very good colleague on the tour. I know how much he is fighting to win a grand slam, but for the moment he was very unlucky. The only thing I am sure is that he is going to win not one, much more than one, so I wish him all the very best and a very fast recovery.”
The Spaniard is the oldest man to reach the final since Bill Tilden, who was 37 when he lost the 1930 final to Henri Cochet. Should he defeat Casper Ruud in Sunday’s final, 17 years after first lifting the Coupe des Mousquetaires as a 19-year-old, he will become the oldest men’s champion in history. This victory, though, was the strangest of birthday gifts for Nadal, who got exactly what he longed for on the day he turned 36, yet in a manner that will bring scant satisfaction to a player who thrives on the adrenaline of competition.
“Even if for me it’s a dream be in the final of Roland Garros, of course that way is not the way that we want it to be,” said Nadal. “It’s not easy and beautiful to talk after what happened. The only thing that I can say is I hope he’s not too bad. Hopefully it’s just the normal thing when you turn your ankle, hopefully nothing is broken. I was with Sascha, looks like they need to keep checking.”
A title run would have brought Zverev not only a first major title, but also the No 1 ranking. Now he seems almost certain to miss Wimbledon, which begins on 27 June, and could face a summer on the sidelines. His frustration will be all the greater for the fact that he was playing the finest tennis he has produced at this or, arguably, any other grand slam tournament. Having dispatched Carlos Alcaraz in the previous round, Zverev immediately picked up where he had left off, landing his booming first serve with unerring regularity and dominating the early baseline exchanges with ball-striking of withering power.
It is often said that the best hope of subduing Nadal on his favourite surface is to overwhelm him with huge serves and heavy groundstrokes. At Roland Garros, where Nadal has been beaten just three times in 111 matches, the evidence for this theory is slender. There was the Spaniard’s fourth-round defeat at the hands of Robin Soderling in 2009, but that came at a time when he was crippled by tendinitis in his knees and struggling to come to terms with the separation of his parents. Being Novak Djokovic, the only other player to get the better of Nadal on the Parisian clay, remains by far the most reliable route to success. Yet, with the Court Philippe Chatrier roof closed due to rain, Zverev breathed fresh life into the received wisdom, his ability to hit through the humid conditions compounding Nadal’s frustration as the balls fluffed up, diminishing the spin and penetration of his groundstrokes.
Nadal needed all his famed tenacity to recover from 4-2 down in the opening set and, when Zverev fended off three set points at 5-4, he was once again forced to go to the well, clawing his way back from 6-2 down in the tiebreak. He was helped on his way by an ace and a wondrous forehand pass, whipped sharply crosscourt from a seemingly hopeless position. But Zverev contributed to his own predicament with a pair of nervy backhand volleys, and when Nadal crushed a forehand pass to seal the set, the former champion looked poised to take control.
Instead, the gruelling nature of the struggle and the relentless quality shown by both men seemed to exact a toll. Nadal was broken four times in a row. Zverev hit three double faults as he tried to serve out the set at 5-3. Four games later, the German’s challenge was over.
If Nadal is to claim a record-extending 22nd major, he will need to find a way past Ruud, the Norwegian eighth seed, who defeated former US Open champion Marin Cilic 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 to reach his first slam final. On what turned out to be a day of multiple twists and turns in Paris, the match was interrupted in the third set by a climate protester who made her way on to the playing surface and, untroubled by security staff, tied herself to the net. A short delay followed, during which both players left the court.
“An environmental activist managed to get onto Philippe Chatrier Court and attached herself to the net with metal wires and glue,” the French Tennis Federation said in a statement. “The young woman, of French nationality, entered the grounds with a valid ticket early in the day. She was then handed over to the police.”
When play resumed, Ruud, who had started passively against the big-hitting Croatian, completed his come-from-behind win, maintaining his increased aggression from the baseline to become the first Norwegian to reach a grand slam final.
“To play Rafa in a Roland Garros final is probably the greatest challenge there is in this sport,” said Ruud, the first Norwegian in history to reach the final of a major.
“I believe he’s 13-0 in the finals, so it might sound like an impossible task. But of course, I will give it a shot like the other 13 people before me have done. It’s obviously going to be tough. We all know what a great champion he is, and how well he plays in the biggest moments and the biggest matches.”