Zverev shakes off a slow opening to dispatch Jodar in straight sets and reach hois 5th Roland-Garros semi-finals
Alexander Zverev (No 2) beat 19-year-old Rafael Jodar 7-6(3), 6-1, 6-3 on Court Philippe-Chatrier — his 5th Roland-Garros semi-final, his 11th Grand Slam semi-final. The match turned on a 10-point run from 2-5 down in the first set. After that, Jodar didn’t break Zverev again and lost his own serve four times. Fonseca or Mensik next, with the German two wins from a first Grand Slam title.
Alexander Zverev, Roland-Garros 2026 | © M. Baucher / PsNewz
Alexander Zverev, the second seed and only top-five player remaining in the men’s draw, beat Spanish 27th seed Rafael Jodar 7-6(3), 6-1, 6-3 on Court Philippe-Chatrier on Tuesday afternoon to reach the semi-finals of Roland-Garros for the fifth time in his career–— and the 11th Grand Slam semi-final of his career overall.
The match turned on a single stretch in the opening set. Jodar, the 19-year-old who had reached the quarter-finals on his second Grand Slam in career after coming back from two sets down against compatriot Pablo Carreño Busta on Sunday, raced to a 5-2 lead and stood serving for the opening set at 5-3. From that point Zverev won 10 consecutive points. Jodar was broken for 5-5, the German held to 6-5, and the tie-break that the Spaniard was eventually unable to escape ran 7-3 to Zverev.
The opening set, which had looked for almost an hour like it would go to the teenager, went to the second seed in a 71-minute set that he had no business being able to claim.
Zverev’s efficient on serve
From there the match was Zverev’s. Jodar did not break the second seed once more across the remaining two sets, and lost his own serve four times – twice in the second set, twice in the third – as the level on the other side of the net found a different gear. Zverev won the second 6-1 and the third 6-3.
Jodar only had ione break point per set after the first one. One at 5-1 for him, one at 5-3: like desperate attemps. He finished with his serve broken once across the contest, and with the contest closed in two hours and 35 minutes.
The win takes Zverev to his 33rd match victory of 2026 and into a semi-final against either Brazilian 19-year-old João Fonseca, the player who beat Novak Djokovic in five sets in the third round, or Czech 20-year-old Jakub Mensik, the player who recovered from a 6-0 first-set bagel to beat Alex de Minaur in the fourth. Their quarter-final follows on Tuesday evening.
Zverev, who lost the 2024 Roland-Garros final to Carlos Alcaraz and twice lost in the semi-finals here in 2021 and 2023, sits two wins away from a first Grand Slam title. With Jannik Sinner, Novak Djoković and Alcaraz all out of the draw, the German is the heavy favourite to lift the trophy on Sunday.
