A French Open match that was turning into a classic ended in agony.
Alexander Zverev crumpled to the ground, screaming in pain after his ankle rolled over horribly while reaching for a forehand in the second set of his semifinal match in Paris against Rafael Nadal, ending his French Open.
Nadal won the first set 7-6 in an epic tiebreaker, and the Spaniard had won the point in which Zverev suffered the injury, sending the second set to a tiebreak.
Zverev rolled around on the clay, clearly in a massive amount of anguish and grabbing his right ankle, before a wheelchair was brought out. Minutes later, Zverev came back out onto Court Philippe Chatrier on crutches, his right shoe removed, and conceded the match, unable to continue.
Nadal walked around the net to check on the 25-year-old.
“We are colleagues,” Nadal said, “And [to] see a colleague on the tour like this, even if for me it’s a dream be in the final of Roland Garros, of course that way is not the way that we want it to be.
“If you are human, you should feel very sorry for a colleague.”
Nadal said Zverev was in tears in the training room as his injury was assessed, calling it a “very tough moment.”
“Very tough and very sad for him, honestly, he was playing unbelievable tournament,” Nadal said on the court after the match. “I know how much he’s fighting to win a Grand Slam, but for the moment he was very unlucky. The only thing is I’m sure he’s going to win not one, much more than one and I wish him all the best and a very fast recovery.”
“Had been a super tough match, three hours, and we didn’t even finish the second set,” Nadal told the Roland Garros crowd. “It’s one of the biggest challenges on the tour when he’s playing at this super high level.”
The sudden end to a contest that was 3 hours old, but not even through two full sets allowed Nadal to become, on his 36th birthday, the second-oldest men’s finalist in French Open history.
He will try to become the oldest champion at a tournament he already has won a record 13 times when he faces first-time Grand Slam finalist Casper Ruud on Sunday.
Ruud defeated veteran Marin Cilic in four sets in the other semifinal, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2, in a match interrupted for more than 10 minutes in the third set by a climate activist who attached herself to the net and knelt on the court.
— With AP
