his ankle twisted violently<\/a>. The images were shocking. He immediately screamed in pain, collapsed to the ground and left the court in crutches. Zverev later revealed that he had torn all three ligaments in the ankle.<\/p>\nThis was not just an injury. It came at arguably the best moment of his career.<\/p>\n
Before the 2022 French Open, he was ranked No. 3 in the world, had reached the semifinals of the previous mentioned tournament, has beaten top players consistently, had won the ATP Finals and an Olympic gold medal. He was widely viewed as one of the leading candidates to win his first Slam.<\/p>\n
Due to the injury, “Sascha” missed that seasons’s major opportunities. When he returned in early 2023, he needed months to regain confidence and movement.<\/p>\n
By 2024, he was back in the Top 10 and winning major matches again. Another golden opportunity presented itself when Alexander reached the French Open final for the first time.<\/p>\n
With Carlos Alcaraz standing on the other side of the net, he once again fell short, losing in five sets to the young Spaniard.<\/p>\n
His Grand Slam misfortune continued. The brutal reality of Major tournaments was on display, with elite opponents standing between him and his first major title.<\/p>\n
The 2025 Australian Open marked another opportunity.<\/p>\n
Zverev came through the first and second rounds in straight sets before winning his fourth round and quarterfinal matches in four sets. Then came the semifinal, where Novak Djokovic awaited. Expectations were high for what promised to be a thrilling clash. However, the Serbian was forced to retire after losing the first set due to a left leg injury.<\/p>\n
The 2021 Olympic champion was once again a small step from claiming a Grand Slam title. But the final challenge would not be easy.<\/p>\n
Waiting for him in Rod Laver Arena was Jannik Sinner and for the first time, Alexander Zverev lost a Grand Slam final in straight sets.<\/p>\n
<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\nNow, six years after his first Major final, the two-time ATP Finals champion will compete for the title in Paris.<\/p>\n
Alexander Zverev has come a long way, but his journey is not over yet.<\/p>\n
Will this finally be the year he finds redemption and wins his first Grand Slam title?<\/p>\n
Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev, the current world No. 3 beat Jakub Mensik 7-5 6-2 3-6 6-3 at the French Open semifinal, and will face the winner of the match between Matteo Arnaldi and Flavio Cobolli in the final. Here is a look at Alexander Zverev’s Grand Slam journey. Alexander Zverev in Grand Slam Finals The German has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5862,"featured_media":56420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,5,9],"tags":[43702,85,15670,18805,17610],"class_list":["post-106107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-french-open","category-news","tag-2026-french-open","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-flavio-cobolli","tag-jakub-mensik","tag-matteo-arnaldi"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5862"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106107"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106172,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106107\/revisions\/106172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}