FRENCH OPEN
Nadal into 14th French Open final as Zverev quits with horror injury
Rafael Nadal reached his 14th French Open final on Friday (June 3) when Alexander Zverev was forced to quit their semi-final after suffering a sickening right ankle injury.
Zverev had to leave the court in a wheelchair after turning his ankle as he chased down the ball in front of the players’ boxes on Court Philippe Chatrier where his team and family were sitting.
The German was trailing 7-6 (10/8), 6-6 after more than three hours of play at the time of the horror injury.
As his piercing screams of pain echoed around the 15,000-seater court, a tearful Zverev was helped from the court by medics.
Minutes later, the 25-year-old returned on crutches and conceded the match, with Nadal embracing his heartbroken opponent.
“It’s very tough and very sad for him. He was playing an unbelievable tournament and he’s a very good colleague on the tour,” said Nadal.
“I know how much he’s fighting to win a Grand Slam. For the moment, he was very unlucky. I’m sure he’ll win not one, but much more than one. I wish him all the best.
“It had been a super tough match. Over three hours and we didn’t even finish the second set. It’s one of the biggest challenges on the tour when he’s playing like he did today.”
He added: “For me, to be in the final of Roland Garros is a dream, without a doubt, but at the same time, for it to finish that way… I have been there in the small room with Sascha and to see him crying like that – I wish him all the best.”
Nadal, chasing a record-extending 22nd Grand Slam title, will play either Marin Cilic or Casper Ruud in Sunday’s final.
Until the dramatic end of the match, Zverev had been pushing Nadal all the way.
In a rollercoaster, 91-minute first set, Zverev broke in the opening game before Nadal levelled at 4-4.
The Spaniard, dripping with sweat under the closed roof on Court Philippe Chatrier, saw three set points come and go in the 10th game as the German’s all-or-nothing hitting kept him in the match.
Nadal, celebrating his 36th birthday Friday, then saved four set points in a knife-edge tiebreak, one of them off a spectacular running crosscourt forehand.
A blistering forehand pass gave him the opener on a sixth set point.
Zverev, playing in the semi-finals at Roland Garros for the second successive year, hit 25 winners and 26 unforced errors in the set.
The second set was punctuated by eight breaks of serve. When Nadal broke for 2-1, he did so on the back of an exhausting 44-shot rally.
Zverev also collected a warning for bad language as the set headed towards another tiebreak.
However, that became quickly irrelevant when his attempt to reach a second Grand Slam final ended in such dramatic circumstances.
Nadal becomes the second oldest man to make the final in Paris after 37-year-old Bill Tilden who was runner-up in 1930.
Victory gives Nadal, who knocked out world number one and defending champion Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals, a 111-3 record at the French Open.
-AFP
Venus Williams will compete in doubles at the French Open later this month, organisers confirmed on Wednesday.
Williams, 45, will partner with Hailey Baptiste, 24, for the clay-court tournament at Roland Garros, which begins on May 24 in Paris.
Williams, however, will not compete in the singles tournament.
She was a wild-card entry at the Australian Open, where she lost in three sets during the first round to Serbia’s Olga Danilovic.
Williams is a former World No. 1 in both singles and doubles. She has won seven Grand Slam titles in singles and 14 in doubles, including the French Open in doubles in 1999 and 2010.
-Reuters
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Newly-crowned French Open champion Coco Gauff, the first Black American to win the title in a decade, said on Saturday her victory in Paris was for people back home who looked like her and struggled amid ongoing political turmoil.
Gauff battled from a set down to beat Aryna Sabalenka 6-7(5) 6-2 6-4 and lift her first French Open crown and her second Grand Slam title after the 2023 U.S. Open.
She is the first Black American to win the French Open since Serena Williams in 2015.
“It means a lot (to win the title), and obviously there’s a lot going on in our country right now with things — like, everything, yeah. I’m sure you guys know,” she said, smiling but without elaborating further.
“But just to be able to be a representation of that and a representation of, I guess, people that look like me in America who maybe don’t feel as supported during this time period, and so just being that reflection of hope and light for those people.”
There has been ongoing political turmoil in the United States following the election of President Donald Trump last year.
Trump’s first few months in office have featured an unapologetic assault on diversity and inclusion efforts, unravelling decades-old policies to remedy historical injustices for marginalised groups in a matter of weeks.
In his second term, Trump revoked a landmark 1965 executive order mandating equal employment opportunities for all, slashed environmental actions to protect communities of colour and ordered the gutting of an agency that helped fund minority and women-owned businesses.
The actions have alarmed advocates, who say they effectively erase decades of hard-fought progress on levelling the playing field for marginalised communities.
“I remember after the election and everything, it kind of felt a down period a little bit and my mom told me during Riyadh (in November 2024) ‘just try to win the tournament, just to give something for people to smile for’.
“So that’s what I was thinking about today when holding that (trophy).
“Then seeing the flags in the crowd means a lot. You know, some people may feel some type of way about being patriotic and things like that, but I’m definitely patriotic and proud to be American, and I’m proud to represent the Americans that look like me and people who kind of support the things that I support.”
Trump has previously denied claims he has employed racist attacks and an agenda throughout his political career.
-Reuters
Paris St Germain forward Ousmane Dembele got a roaring welcome usually reserved for tennis champions when he carried the freshly-won Champions League trophy onto centre court on Monday.
The French soccer club beat Inter Milan 5-0 in the showcase match in Munich on Saturday to clinch the trophy for the first time before the players and staff got a heroes’ welcome in the French capital on Sunday.
The festivities for Dembele, who was voted the Champions League Player of the Season, continued on Monday when he carried the shiny trophy onto Court Philippe Chatrier in front of more than 10,000 people.
He was wearing a white T-shirt with the word “triumph” written on it.
Paris St Germain’s Ousmane Dembele presents the Champions League trophy on the Philippe-Chatrier court before the fourth round match between Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Britain’s Cameron Norrie REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
Organisers could not have timed the brief ceremony better, with Europe’s most prestigious soccer club trophy arriving minutes after world number 361 and wild card Lois Boisson of France stunned third-seeded American Jessica Pegula in three sets to reach the last eight in the upset of the tournament.
“Ici c’est Paris, (This is Paris)” shouted Dembele as the normally more reserved afternoon tennis crowd erupted with cheers.
“Exceptional, it was a magic moment in Munich. We played an exceptional season and were rewarded with our first European Cup,” France international Dembele told the crowd.
“The individual titles are fine but it is the collective titles that matter. We will try to win as many titles as possible.”
Novak Djokovic, the 24-times Grand Slam champion and three-times winner in Paris, was on court later for a straight sets win over Briton Cameron Norrie and he was quick to congratulate the Paris club, having joined in PSG’s Sunday festivities.
“An incredible season for PSG so congratulations to all Parisians,” the Serb said after his 100th career win on the Roland Garros clay. “It was amazing to be there yesterday.
“Two days ago during the game I was playing and it was a bit complicated to get to my hotel afterwards, complicated being an understatement. The roads were quite the show.”
PSG are only the second French side to win the European Cup after Olympique de Marseille in 1993.
-Reuters
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