German tennis number one Alexander Zverev beat Italy‘s Flavio Cobolli 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-7, 6-1 in the final of the French Open on Sunday to win a first ever Grand Slam.
The 29-year-old from Hamburg, currently ranked third in the world, had previously lost in the finals of the US Open (2020), the French Open (2024) and the Australian Open (2025), but finally secured a maiden Grand Slam in Paris.
Zverev became the favorite for this year’s tournament at Roland Garros after top seed and world number one Jannik Sinner was eliminated in the second round followed by world number four Novak Djokovic in the third round.
Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz pulled out of the event with an arm injury and Zverev took full advantage, only losing two sets of tennis en route to the final against tenth seed Cobolli.
Zverev twice leads but Cobolli responds
The German romped to a 6-1 first-set win before being pegged back 4-6 in the second. He restored his lead by winning the third set 6-4 before recovering from an early break of serve in the fourth to take the set to a tie break.
Zverev had won his previous 12 French Open tie breaks, but finally lost one when it really mattered as Cobolli converted a second set point to take the fourth set 7-6 and set up a decider.
After a long break, Zverev drew on his experience of three previous Grand Slam final defeats and ensured that they would not be followed by a fourth as he quickly broke the Cobolli serve twice and raced into a 3-0 lead in the final set.
He survived one final scare in the fourth game as he rescued three Cobolli break points to hold serve at 4-0, before finally breaking serve again to take the set 6-1 and write German tennis history.
Edited by: Saim Dušan Inayatullah
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