PARIS (AP) — Carlos Alcaraz reached his first French Open final by beating Jannik Sinner 2-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Friday, making the 21-year-old from Spain the youngest man to reach a Grand Slam title match on three surfaces. Alcaraz won the U.S.
PARIS — Carlos Alcaraz reached his first French Open final by beating Jannik Sinner 2-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Friday, making the 21-year-old from Spain the youngest man to reach a Grand Slam title match on three surfaces.
The No. 3-seeded Alcaraz will face Alexander Zverev or Casper Ruud in Sunday’s final. It is the first men’s title match at the French Open since 2004 without any of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer. No. 4 Zverev of Germany and No. 7 Ruud of Norway were scheduled to meet in the second semifinal Friday. Zverev’s domestic abuse case in Berlin ended earlier in the day, when he reached an out-of-court settlement with his accuser, a former girlfriend.
Both men were troubled physically in the third set, but it was Sinner who took it. Alcaraz flexed his right hand as it began to cramp; Sinner got his right forearm and left leg massaged. It brought to mind last year’s French Open semifinals, when Alcaraz got off to a terrific start against Djokovic but then was hit in the third set by full-body cramps that rendered the remainder of the match anticlimactic.
In the fifth set, with shadows covering more than half the court, Alcaraz moved out front by sliding until he could reach across his body to snap a backhand passing winner for a break point. A forehand winner — one of his 30 in the match — made it 2-0 at the 3 1/2-hour mark, earning a yell of “Vamos!” from his coach, 2003 French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero.Both players walloped the ball with such force that the ball-off-strings thuds elicited gasps from spectators in the middle of points.
The key statistic in that set: On points that lasted four strokes or fewer, each player took 13. But of those that lasted any longer, Sinner held a 19-8 advantage. Alcaraz would start trying to shorten the points as the match wore on.
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