Zverev meets predictions and will play the Roland Garros final against Cobolli

The German tennis player Alexander Zverev has reached this Friday the men’s singles final of the Roland Garros tournament, the second ‘Grand Slam’ of the year and which is held in Paris on clay, thanks to his 7-5, 6-2, 3-6 and 6-3 victory against the Czech Jakub Mensik, while the other finalist will be the Italian Flavio Cobolli due to the withdrawal of his compatriot Matteo Arnaldi “due to a viral illness.”

On the Philippe-Chatrier Court, the first stages predicted an intense encounter between two contenders with powerful serves. It was from the fourth game onwards that ‘Sascha’ Zverev best exploited that weapon, but Mensik held his own very well and even after the rest he had a 15-40 in the eighth that forced his opponent to react quickly.

Said and done, Zverev neutralized those two and another break ball to maintain equality in the set (4-4), then he didn’t even flinch despite giving up the next serve and equalized the score again with his reliable serve (5-5), just before turning the helm taking advantage of the only break ball (6-5) he had in the entire first set.

The German immediately scored it in his locker, after just over an hour had passed, and shortly after starting the second set he demonstrated his efficiency again. He was 1-1, in the third game he was 15-40 and that was enough to take the lead with another break that he immediately consolidated (3-1) to pave his way, even smoother after another break for 5-2.

Despite the German’s superiority on the scoreboard, Mensik showed accurate shots from the baseline, precise shots and few but accurate climbs to the net, and also did not look too physically demanding. It was not a duel of running more, but of running better, and at the beginning of the third set he continued with that idea until his neck suffered.

After a few games had passed, the Czech asked for medical assistance and even went to the locker room for a short time to be better attended to, returning from there with so much renewed energy that he took the lead on the partial score (2-3) and broke Zverev’s serve to liven things up, as he maintained his aim and solidity until clinching that set.

Even so, Zverev has been the great favorite for the title for days among the predictions of many experts and he fulfilled this because from the start in the fourth round he was imperial in service and concise in the rest, signing a ‘break’ in the second game that he consolidated right after to go 3-0. Mensik had resisted enough in the fierce rallies of the Teuton.

‘Sascha’ accelerated to close the victory in three hours and one minute to get into his fourth final of a ‘big’, second in Paris after the loss in 2024 against the Spanish Carlos Alcaraz. His opponent will now be Cobolli, directly qualified for that event because Arnaldi could not even start his ‘semi’ due to a virus, according to the organization.