The best players who have never won a Grand Slam will never be invited to a Grand Slam again if they win just one more time.
After an up-and-down draw at Roland Garros, world number three Alexander Zverev advanced to the final with a 7-5, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 victory over 26th seed Jakub Menschik on Friday. The Italian advanced by default after compatriot Matteo Arnaldi withdrew due to a viral illness, but will face Flavio Cobogli in Sunday’s final.
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Zverev has a record of 3 wins and 1 loss against the 24-year-old Koboli.
It will be Zverev’s fourth career Grand Slam final and Koboli’s first. Obviously, Zverev’s first three matches did not go very well.
At the 2020 US Open, which was hit by the coronavirus pandemic, he lost completely against Dominic Thiem. At Roland Garros in 2024, he took a 2-1 set lead against Carlos Alcaraz, but lost in the final two sets. He was beaten hard by Jannik Sinner at the 2025 Australian Open.
All three opponents were top-five players. Zverev hasn’t had to face such a difficult opponent in this tournament, and he won’t have to in the final either. He is the only elite player left alive after the shocking upsets of Sinner and Novak Djokovic, and injuries to Carlos Alcaraz and several other young talents.
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Mensik may have been a challenge. At 6-foot-5, he is one of the best servers on tour, bringing a strong baseline game to the table that helped him win the 2025 Miami Open in the past. But this was his first career Grand Slam semi-final, and it showed as the match progressed.
Alexander Zverev was the more consistent player in the Roland Garros semi-finals
Both players are huge servers, but Mensik’s most important shots were inconsistent on a windy day in Paris. He’s not built to beat top opponents. Especially if you’re regularly making unforced errors in winnable points.
Mensik won just 60% of his fast first serves (he made a lot of early mistakes) and only 49% of his second serves.
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The players were on serve in the first set, but Mensik’s two double faults gave Zverev a break and kept him on the back foot until the end of the second set.
The match was stopped in the third set after Mensik, who was struggling with the conditions at Roland Garros, required a medical timeout. He seemed to come back with renewed vigor and quickly grabbed a break for the third set victory.
However, Zverev quickly grabbed a break in the fourth set and denied his opponent any further advantage. He was a player who took advantage of his chances throughout the match, winning break points on 4 of 7 compared to 1 of 4 for Mensik, not to mention a favorable difference between winners and forced errors.
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What is the chemistry between Alexander Zverev and Flavio Coboli?
Kobori is by far the highest-ranked fighter Zverev will face in this tournament, but Zverev is still considered to have the advantage.
The Italian at least presents a different challenge than Mensik, showing off his athletic all-court game in defeating Zverev 6-3, 6-3 in Munich two months ago. Cobolli, who played an emotional match after the death of his friend’s son, regularly won, hitting seven aces in two sets and playing the best tennis of his career to break into the top 10 for the first time.
However, Zverev gave back in the quarter-finals against Madrid 6-1, 6-4, so Koboli has some work to do if he wants to play properly. Since he doesn’t have to play on Friday, he at least gets the rest of the advantage, not to mention he should be far less mentally taxed than his opponents.
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Can Alexander Zverev really do this?
From around the third round, it was clear that something other than the title was going to be a surprise for Zverev. This was certainly not a fait accompli as the German player failed to take some big chances. He is ranked No. 3 in the world, but hasn’t won a tournament since Munich in April 2025.
This ensured that he would face a lower-ranked Italian in the final, rather than the Italian who had lost nine games in a row (Sinner). He will be given great treatment. He is not the most popular player on tour and will likely come under intense scrutiny due to allegations of domestic violence from two women (which he denies) and a series of on-court incidents. He’s going to be a player to watch, but we won’t know until Sunday whether that’s a good thing.
All I can say is that he probably won’t have the chance to win a Grand Slam this directly for the rest of his career. While most of the other elite tennis players are in their early 20s, he can’t afford to waste his age at 29.
