Without Grand Slam apex predators, a French Open final of mere mortals

PARIS — In recent Grand Slam finals, apex predators have ruled the men’s tennis jungle.

Every time tennis fans settled in, two immortals were facing off, or one was vanquishing a player a click or two below an all-time great.

The past five years have delivered some of the most memorable men’s finals in tennis history. There was Carlos Alcaraz, coming back to topple Novak Djokovic in five sets at Wimbledon in 2023. There was Alcaraz again, this time sharing the court with Jannik Sinner and playing try-to-top-this tennis down the stretch of their five-hour-and-35-minute duel for the French Open title last year on Court Philippe-Chatrier.

It ended as only it could have, with Alcaraz sprinting for a magical down-the-line-forehand, his grunt on his stroke morphing into a scream of ecstasy as his lunge for the shot melted into his court-collapse celebration.

On match point Sunday evening in Paris, Alexander Zverev lofted a lob to Flavio Cobolli, who had rushed the net in an attempt to push this year’s French Open final one point further. Cobolli craned his neck, drifted back a step or two, rose and shanked an overhead 20 feet off the court.

Cobolli and Zverev are massively talented tennis players. They gave every ounce of energy they had over the course of five sets, four hours and 16 minutes for the Coupe des Mousquetaires. When it was over, Zverev was on his back, bathing in the clay. He had survived a topsy-turvy match that had its flashes of greatness, as all tennis matches do, for a 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-1 win and a first Grand Slam title.

A work of art it wasn’t, and that’s just the way it goes sometimes. There are no asterisks in tennis history books next to Grand Slam finals that come up short on the magic scale.

It’s just a little different, and after the way this year’s French Open unfolded, it was always going to be that way.

Alcaraz pulled out of this tournament last month with a wrist injury. Sinner succumbed to illness and cramps in the second round, amid the heat wave of the first week. Brazil’s 19-year-old João Fonseca came from two sets down to take out Djokovic the next day.

That busted the draw wide open. The French Open became a contest among mortals, with the ethereal talents of the sport out of the way, trying to seize upon a rare opportunity. They fought to survive as they rarely had before, with more than 30 matches going five sets.

Zverev’s Grand Slam final debut came six years ago, at the 2020 U.S. Open. That one went five sets as well, devolving into a slice-fest with Dominic Thiem of Austria, who, like Zverev that day and Cobolli on Sunday, was also trying to find a way to his first Grand Slam title.

Down the stretch that night, Zverev’s serve completely abandoned him. He rolled balls in at less than 70 mph. Thiem wasn’t much better, but someone had to win, and it was Thiem who cracked the groundstrokes he needed to fall to the court in ecstasy, in the silence of a near-empty stadium.

Zverev has played two Grand Slam finals since then, losing to Alcaraz in five sets at the French Open two years ago, and then at the Australian Open in January of 2025, where Sinner beat him in straight sets.

On Sunday in Paris, Zverev was just as good as he needed to be. He grew tentative in the fourth and fifth sets, tightening along with the match. But Cobolli was tired and cramping, and in this case, the effects of Zverev’s nerves were less potent than Cobolli’s fatigue, allowing Zverev to lift that trophy in the air.

In the fifth set, with the championship and probably the future of Zverev’s psyche on the line, Zverev hit six winners and nine unforced errors, compared with four and 15 for Cobolli. Zverev double-faulted three times. His usually reliable backhand grew shaky.

Zverev had played high-level tennis during much of the tournament. Sunday was different.

“The level was not as stable as it had been,” he said in a news conference. “I was just very tight today. I was nervous.”

In Cobolli, he faced the perfect foe for such an occasion. He is a gifted player and athlete who dropped out of one of Italy’s top soccer academies to pursue the sport, but also a sensitive player still finding his fangs, with a celestial ceiling and a hellish floor.

Three years ago, Alcaraz thumped Cobolli in his first French Open appearance, bageling him in the first set of a match that felt more like an exhibition. Two years ago, Cobolli essentially swooned when facing Rafael Nadal, unable to find anything approaching a competitive level against his childhood idol.

In the semifinals, he was supposed to play his friend and compatriot, Matteo Arnaldi, but Arnaldi got a stomach virus. Cobolli was near tears, and did a news conference with Arnaldi, in the same room. He has a quirky superstition: when he wins a point on his serve, he asks for a ball back that he has just played with, even if it’s on the other side of the court. Most pros don’t do that, especially on clay, preferring a clear ball, free of debris, that has regained its shape after some recent pummelling.

He came out Sunday trying to play highlight-reel tennis, not advisable in a Grand Slam debut. Alcaraz, an occasional training partner, described Cobolli as having all the shots but not the best decision-making power.

Cobolli made several attempts to lace shots around or over the net post.  By the end of the first set, he had committed 16 unforced errors against just three winners. But then he settled down, added some shape to his shots, played safer, and extended rallies. Zverev tightened and got sloppy, and they found themselves all even.

And so it went for the better part of the next two hours, especially in the up-and-down fourth set. Cobolli grabbed an early lead, gave it up, grabbed another, and gave it up again while serving out the set. Holding two set points in the tiebreak, he rushed the net and leapt for a high volley too early. He missed by a lot.

On the next point, with Zverev three points from the title, Cobolli laced a forehand down the line.

“I said to myself ‘go for it,’” he said in a news conference. “I just closed my eyes, it sometimes helps.”

He said he had closed his eyes on both the botched volley and the overhead. Only he knew that his body had started to abandon him. Cramps began in his calf late in the tiebreak, and by the start of the fifth set, his thigh ached.

“I felt completely tired and my body left me on the court,” he said.

Zverev wasn’t in great shape either. He took a time violation and flirted with a second one as he took medication and searched for energy. “The cramps were more mental,” he said.

“I was tightening up. … If I would have lost this one the self-belief would have gone down a lot.”

Any chance of an Alcaraz vs. Sinner 2025 reprise, two players rising higher than they ever have, racing to meet the moment, was long gone. Zverev has some awful memories of Court Philippe-Chatrier.

Injuring his ankle ligaments while leading a semifinal against Rafael Nadal in 2022, and losing the five-set final to Alcaraz two years later. No matter what it looked like, Sunday’s win will wash all those thoughts away.

“If you call me the worst player to win a Grand Slam, I could not care less,” he said.