French Open: Carlos Alcaraz Edges Closer To Winning Maiden Roland-Garros Title

 

The French Open is into its final and that's without big names such as Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, leaving Carlos Alcaraz to slog out the final match with German veteran, Alexander Zverev. It will be Spaniard's maiden final in Roland-Garros - a championship previously dominated by Nadal.

For Alcaraz to reach the final, he had a hard-fought semi-final match with Jannik Sinner, but he was able to upset the Italian in a rally after trailing two sets to one. In the fourth set at 5-4 0/30, he rallied to win a break and forced the game to the distance to win the thrilling five-setter 2-6 6-3 3-6 6-4 6-3. 

Besides the tenacity of the match, Alcaraz would have suffered a little setback on his fitness from cramps, he fought on regardless. He later on said he knew "the cramps are going to [go] away" if he remained mentality strong during the match. 

Winning the match was a big deal for the Spaniard, besides it being his maiden final in Philippe Chatrier, he will be the youngest player ever to play in the final of major clay-court final. Mind you, he is also the youngest player ever to win the final of major hard and grass-court final, and that was at US Open and Wimbledon respectively. 

"Honestly, before the final it's something that I really don't want to think about it," said Alcaraz. "Obviously, that means that, as I said, I'm playing good tennis on every surface."

Jannik, on his part, had a day off in the quarterfinal which Djokovic retired from to leave the championship following a knee injury during fourth-round match. As a consequence, Jannik is poised to top ATP World ranking for reaching the semi-finals while Djokovic will drop to second.