The anxious wait is over for Alexander Zverev: In a dramatic final against Flavio Cobolli, which he won 6:1, 4:6, 6:4, 6:7 (5:7), 6:1, the German tennis star fulfilled his dream of the Grand Slam title at the French Open.
On Sunday, June 7th, 2026, at 7:44 p.m., Zverev finally did it. Since failing to qualify for the US Open in 2014, the German tennis star has dreamed in vain of a Grand Slam title – and after a total of 42 failed attempts (39 of them in the main draw), Zverev is free of this burden. After an incredible fight lasting 4:16 hours, the 29-year-old sank to the ground full of happiness, cried tears of joy and enjoyed the moment as he lay sweaty on the red sand.
Dream start for Zverev
At the beginning of 2025, after his defeat in the final of the Australian Open against Jannik Sinner, Zverev feared that he would become the best player of all time without a Grand Slam victory – this fear is now history. And in his fourth final in the Top 4 tournaments, the Hamburg native made it clear from the first minute that his trauma would end that day.
Cobolli, who survived the semifinals without a fight due to Matteo Arnaldi’s viral illness, opened the game and immediately felt Zverev’s dominance. The German quickly took a 4-1 lead with a double break, and the one-sided first set was over after just 35 minutes. Cobolli then briefly disappeared into the dressing room; it was obvious that he had to collect himself after a performance that was not worthy of the final and, among other things, made 16 errors without necessity.
Cobolli equalizes, Zverev puts forward again
Cobolli then remained stable at the start of the second round and eventually cracked Zverev. After the 2-2 score, he whipped up the fans and signaled with his swinging bat that he was now fully there. Zverev’s first answer: A completely cool service game won to zero. But then he broke Zverev to 4:3 and maintained this decisive advantage to 6:4 and equalize the set.
Not only was the match evenly balanced in terms of results, both finalists were now playing on equal terms – this was the case throughout the entire third set. And when there was little to suggest it, Zverev suddenly won. Several mistakes by Cobolli allowed him to get the break point when the score was 5:4, then a forehand from the Italian sailed far out of bounds for a 2-1 lead in the set. After that, Zverev really let himself out for the first time, and now he heated up the audience.
On the way to the final, the German number one for many years had not had to defeat a top opponent, neither Carlos Alcaraz (had to withdraw for the French Open) nor his feared opponent Jannik Sinner (eliminated early) were the opponents in the final – and now he was very close to his big goal. Zverev was only missing one sentence.
Great drama in the fourth movement
But the fourth round started very badly with a loss of serve. In view of losing the set, Zverev managed to equalize 5:5 at the last moment with several magic strokes. The 29-year-old obviously had physical problems, his right leg was threatening to cramp and so he was forced to play more offensively again – and it paid off. Cobolli had no chance at all with two baseline hits in the corner.
Zverev was given a remedy for the tension and received a warning because of the delay. Cobolli fought and was unlucky that the German served an ace to make it 6:5, the imprint of which looked as if the ball had been out of bounds. The Italian still made it to the tie-break and won it, for Zverev it was only the third lost tie-break in Paris out of 29.
Overhead balls break Cobolli’s neck
Due to the physical problems, it now looked as if Zverev would fail in his big dream again – but with an incredible fighting performance he fulfilled it. And because of Cobolli’s mistakes and lack of discipline. Zverev gave the impression that he could defeat his opponent and his body. The Italian couldn’t cope with that at all, he lost patience with himself, complained louder and louder, so Zverev took the serve away from him again to make it 3-0.
The great madness broke out shortly afterwards when Cobolli had a break ball and hit one shot after another into the corners, but Zverev ran everything and forced the Italian to make another mistake with an overhead ball. This happened for the third time at a very crucial moment. So Zverev held his serve and only needed to win two more games. Cobolli continued to make mistakes and didn’t make it too difficult for Zverev. In keeping with the game, the Italian ended the game with another botched overhead ball.
Zverev the fifth German Grand Slam winner
The world number three is only the fifth German to achieve the feat of winning a Grand Slam. Before Zverev, only Michael Stich, Steffi Graf, Boris Becker and Angelique Kerber had won titles at the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon or the US Open. After three final defeats in 2020 in New York, 2024 in Paris and 2025 in Melbourne, Zverev no longer has to fear “the best player to never win a Grand Slam” to become.
And Cobolli paid homage to him afterwards, despite his own grief: “No one deserves it as much as you.” For years Zverev had to congratulate other players, now he has managed to be the one who the whole tennis circus congratulates. He is now officially a Grand Slam winner.