“Victory belongs to the most stubborn”, proclaims a quote from Roland Garros affixed to the stands of the Philippe-Chatrier court. The coronation of Carlos Alcaraz was undoubtedly a good illustration of this, Sunday June 9. The 21-year-old Spaniard triumphed for the first time on Parisian clay, against the German Alexander Zverev, after a marathon in five sets (6-3, 2-6, 5-7, 6- 1, 6-2) of 4 hours and 18 minutes.
The winner of this 2024 tournament would necessarily be unprecedented since the final pitted two players who had never won titles, while the monsters Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal had shared the last eight editions. Under the windy sun at Porte d’Auteuil, Carlos Alcaraz, who readily dreams of being the heir to his fourteen-times titled compatriot, got the better of the man who eliminated Nadal in the first round. Like a symbol.
But it was long! A bit like Alcaraz’s semi-final against the new world No. 1, the Italian Jannik Sinner, the match dragged on less due to titanic opposition than to the successive failures of the entrants.
The match had also started as if in reverse, Zverev starting it with two double faults at the start. Despite a change of racket, he immediately gave up his service game. But the pressure was felt on both players. Alcaraz made unforced errors, a double fault, a missed shot… and also lost his serve.
It was, basically, a reaction match, with a balance of power fluctuating according to the better or worse moves of one or the other. Disgusted in the first set (6-3), shaken to the four corners of the court by the delicious variety of Alcaraz’s game, Zverev reversed the trend in the second set. The world No. 4 finally managed to use his two main weapons, a powerful serve and a strong forehand, and won 6-2, reminding Alcaraz that being Rafael Nadal’s compatriot did not exempt him from fighting for ascend his throne.
Carlos Alcaraz, the best for last
Predictions about the mental strength of the two protagonists were going well before the match, giving the advantage to the Spaniard. In question, his two Grand Slam finals won on as many occasions (US Open 2022, Wimbledon 2023), against Zverev’s only final, at the US Open 2020, lost after he had led two sets to nothing .
Of these speculations, there was not much left when, in the third set, the German, trailing 5-2, found the resources to turn things around again and line up five games in a row to win the set, 7 -5. And we began to wonder, as the shadows of the stands lengthened over the court, which of the players or the European candidates would be decided on their fate first.
However, it was at the moment when Carlos Alcaraz seemed most helpless – at the end of the third set, he had relied on implausible protests to the referee about the quality of the clay – that he finally took off, not to be caught again. He accelerated again to dispatch the fourth set, 6-1.
Fresher and more inspired in the game, the Spaniard above all demonstrated a characteristic specific to very great players: the ability to surpass oneself in adversity. The fifth set, despite the fatigue at the end of four hours of play, delivered some of the best points of the match. But Zverev, tense and worn, let go little by little, while Alcaraz further raised his level of play, finally winning on the first match point.
After his victories at the US Open and Wimbledon, Carlos Alcaraz is now the youngest player to win three different Grand Slam tournaments, on three surfaces (hard, grass and clay). Rafael Nadal’s heir has not usurped his title, and his reign, without a doubt, is only just beginning.
