Watched Fonseca beat Ruud last night. He was all over Ruud, he made Ruud work for every single point he won where as Fonseca didnt need to work as hard for his points.
Fonseca seems to have worked hard on getting more consistency into his game. Now he has seen off Djokovic a 3 time winner and Ruud, twice a runner up in the french open. Like a lot of other players i think this was very good chance for Ruud to pick up a slam.
Should he a good match between Fonseca and Mensik tomorrow.
Cobolli needs to work on his english language interviews
Ruud is a solid Top 10 type player but he doesn’t really have the game to be winning Grand Slams. Ruud has a kick serve which bounces really high and is quite effective and tricky on clay courts in particular. A top drawer backhand from a right handed player or a forehand from a leftie like Nadal negates that weapon and then he doesn’t really have the all round big game for the top players.
The bottom half of the draw in particular is very interesting. Zverev obviously red hot favourite to win it now but has two 19 years olds in Jodar and Fonseca and a 20 year old in Mensik. All three of those have been tipped for great things and Grand Slam wins for a few years now since their junior days.
Matteo Berrettini -v- Matteo Arnaldi
Félix Auger-Aliassime (4) -v- Flavio Cobolli (10)
Jakub Mensik (26) - v- Joao Fonseca (28)
Alex Zverev (2) -v- Rafael Jódar (27)
I have a sneaky suspicion that an Italian could nick this slam. I know Zverev is the favorite but those 3 Italians in the other half of the draw could beat him.
Zverev vs Jodar up first today and then Fonseca vs Mensik this evening. Both should be entertaining
That was very impressive from Zverev. Recovered from an early break in first set to see off Jodar easily enough, 7-6 6-1 6-3
Mensik is playing great stuff against Fonseca. Fonseca is a bit flat in this match which understandable after the matches against Djokovic and Ruud.
Big hold for FAA after being brought to deuce. Cobolli missed a massive chance to get break point though
Cobolli misses another sitter after going a break up in the third, then double-faults. These two are prone to throwing in an error at any given point, this could go on a while
Cobolli holds on, including a 23 shot rally at break-point. 5-3 up in the third
Cobolli goes 2-1 up. 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Cobolli prevails. 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Guarantee of Italian participation in the closing rounds now
Zverev breaks Cobolli in opening game of the final.
Zverev on the cusp. He’s 5-1 up in the 5th set.
Zverev wins 6-1 4-6 6-4 6-7 6-1
A first German win in Paris since 1937. On the tennis courts that is. The Wehrmacht did win in Paris in 1940. Henner Henkel the tennis winner in 1937 was killed in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943.
From the set and a half I saw, Zverev did his best to lose it.
Zverev made heavy work of it but after all his near misses over the years, it was inevitable that he wouldn’t make it easy for himself. The only thing that mattered for Zverev was winning and he did. There’ll be mutterings for sure that he didn’t have to go through any of Alcaraz, Sinner or even a now fading Djokovic to win it. He has been a solid Top 5 player for a good few years now though and is one of the few to have beaten Nadal at Roland Garros. Now that the monkey is off his back, he could relax a bit and win a few more Grand Slams.