Clinical: Zverev reaches his second Roland-Garros final and his fourth Grand Slam final, beating Mensik in four sets
Alexander Zverev defeated Jakub Mensik 7-5, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 on Friday afternoon. He’ll face the winner of the match between Matteo Arnaldi and No 10 seed Flavio Cobolli in the final
Alexander Zverev, Roland-Garros 2026 | © PsNewz
Alexander Zverev, the second seed, beat Czech 26th seed Jakub Mensik 7-5, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 on Court Philippe-Chatrier on Friday afternoon to reach the final of Roland-Garros for the second time in his career, and the final of a Grand Slam for the fourth time.
The 28-year-old German, who lost his three previous Slam finals to Dominic Thiem at the 2020 US Open, Carlos Alcaraz at Roland-Garros 2024, and Jannik Sinner at the 2025 Australian Open, will face the winner of Italian 10th seed Flavio Cobolli against Italian world No. 104 Matteo Arnaldi on Sunday – and arrives at the contest as the heavy favourite to lift the trophy he has been chasing for half a decade.
The contest was tense rather than memorable. Both players held cleanly through the first seven games of the opening set, neither facing a break point, before the match turned in two consecutive games. At 4-4 on Zverev’s serve, Mensik produced three break points across a long deuce battle. The German saved all three. Two games later, at 5-5 on Mensik’s serve, Zverev converted his first break-point opportunity at 30-40 and the only window the Czech would get in the contest was gone. Zverev served out the set 7-5, and from that point onward Mensik would not generate another break point until the third set.
Mensik’s set was the third
The second was the moment the gap in level became visible. Zverev broke in the third game, weathered a Mensik service game in which the 20-year-old recovered from 0-40 down without ever reaching break point on the return, and broke again at 4-2 to lead 5-2. He won 93 per cent of his first-serve points across the set – 13 of 14 – and closed it out 6-2 in 30 minutes. The total points across the set finished 64-36 in Zverev’s favour.
The third set was the only one Mensik took, and the cleanest one he played all afternoon. He committed only four unforced errors across the set against Zverev’s eleven, broke the German once at 3-2 in his only break-point opportunity of the set, and held the rest of his service games with the kind of ease that had not been visible in the first two.
He served out the set 6-3 to love, winning 90 per cent of points behind his first serve and 79 per cent on his second. The Czech was the better player for 30 minutes, and the better player at no other moment of the match.
Zverev, one more match
The fourth set was a return to the pattern of the second. Zverev broke Mensik in the second game, held to 5-2, and never gave the Czech a break-point opportunity. Mensik produced one moment of resistance at 0-3, when he saved two break points on his own serve across multiple deuces to hold for 1-3 – the kind of fight that mattered as a single game and not at all as a strategic intervention.
Alexander Zverev is the first player to reach a Grand Slam final without facing an ATP top 20 opponent en route since… himself at the US Open 2020. At Roland-Garros, it’s the first time since Rafael Nadal in 2010.
Zverev held all five of his service games in the set, won 82 per cent of his first-serve points, and closed the match at 5-3 on his first match point. He has dropped two sets across the tournament. He has been on court for 13 hours and 22 minutes across six rounds. He celebrated the match-point conversion with no visible emotion. Zverev has just claimed a 44th Men’s Singles match win at Roland Garros, equalling David Ferrer (44) for the most of any player in the Open Era not to have won the event. Nothing he wants to be proud of.
