In the Stade Roland Garros it looked very different on Tuesday. Zverev started highly concentrated on the Philippe Chatrier court and was unrecognizable compared to the sloppy performance against Alcaraz compatriot Bernabe Zapata Miralles in the round of 16. Before the game, the German number one had criticized the preferential treatment of Alcaraz by the organizers.
Even before the French Open, it had been heard from the Zverev camp that the hype about the young Spaniard had become a bit too much for him. Apparently Zverev drew the necessary motivation from this. “He’s this fresh, new face in tennis that everyone wants to see. But I know that even at my age of 25 and even if many have somehow already written me off, I don’t just go out on the court to have a good match to play, but that I want to win it,” said Zverev.
Zverev shows nerves of steel
Zverev acted much more aggressively than in the previous games and did not let Alcaraz play his usual dominant game. He also showed nerves of steel right from the start when he fended off a break ball from the Spaniard in his first service game. Instead, he took over the service from Alcaraz himself a little later and from then on determined what happened, to the amazement of the spectators. Alcaraz, the youngest Paris quarter-finalist in 16 years, began to struggle with himself and made a total of 16 avoidable errors in the first round. After 43 minutes, Zverev took the first set.
Even after that, Zverev remained surprisingly stable and survived the tricky phases with flying colours. Again he fended off the first breakball of the set and a little later made the break himself. He converted the third set ball with an ace.
Alcaraz then disappeared into the dressing room for a few minutes. But even after his return, the tennis prodigy initially found no remedy against Zverev, who acted almost flawlessly. When the score was 4: 4, however, Zverev missed a breakball, which cost him dearly. Because a little later, Alcaraz took the service from him out of nowhere and got the third set. The audience went wild, Alcaraz danced jubilantly across the square.
But Zverev remained impressively calm. In the fourth set, Alcaraz, who was now increasing, tried several times to pull the momentum onto his side. But Zverev fought back and this time made the break to 5: 4. But that wasn’t enough to win at first because Alcaraz managed the re-break. The decision had to be made in the tie-break, where Zverev fended off a set ball to make the victory perfect a little later. The rest was pure joy.