Zverev earns second shot at Roland-Garros title as Italian scores free pass to final

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.

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 shockingl