French Open: No Djokovic. No Sinner. No Alcaraz. Just Alexander Zverev and his demons

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With all of his most gifted rivals long gone from Roland Garros, the French Open men’s title truly seems like it’s going to come down to Alexander Zverev versus his demons.

Finally, the opportunity of a lifetime is at hand: At 29 years old, after a Grand Slam résumé cursed by choke jobs, bad luck and two generations of colossus champions at the top of the sport that he could not overcome, Zverev will be heavily favored to win the two matches he needs to shed the label of best player never to win a major.

It should be easy. It will probably be torture. And it may well be his last, best chance to rewrite the narrative of a career that many fans have taken great pleasure in watching stall out every time one of the biggest trophies is in his grasp.

“For me, it’s quite simple — it’s me playing well,” Zverev said after a relatively straightforward victory over 19-year-old Rafael Jodar in the quarterfinals. “I’ve said it before — I really have to trust my game, I have to trust my tennis and trust myself, and if I play well then I think that’s 99 percent of the work.”

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Ahh, but that last one percent — the percent that has shrunk the 6-foot-6 German in the biggest moments, and the percent his many detractors are holding onto for hope once again — hangs over this French Open with the weight of an anvil.

Because the Zverev story is not a straightforward one, and the reaction to him becoming a Grand Slam champion will be complex if that’s how it goes down on Sunday.

Here’s the simple part: Nobody has accomplished more in tennis without winning a Slam than Zverev — not just among his contemporaries, but over the entire history of the sport. With an Olympic gold medal from the 2021 Tokyo Games plus 24 ATP titles, including two year-end championships and seven at the Masters 1000 level, you could credibly argue he’s put together a more well-rounded career than a number of players who are already in the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

As part of the so-called “sandwich generation” of 1990s-born players that were caught between the end of the Roger Federer/Rafael Nadal/Novak Djokovic dynasty and the audacious rise of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, trying to snag even a single Slam title has often turned into a humiliation ritual. If Zverev manages to do it, he’ll be only the third in the last 10 years, joining Dominic Thiem (2020 U.S. Open) and Daniil Medvedev (2021 U.S. Open).

Given his ability and longevity at the top of the game — Zverev has essentially been a top-five player in the world since the summer of 2017 — it would be appropriate and even well-deserved for him to have a major.

But here’s the not-so-simple part: Due to multiple controversies around him, Zverev will not be easy for many fans to embrace as a Slam champion.

At this tournament in 2024, while Zverev was on a path to the final against Alcaraz, a civil court hearing over domestic abuse allegations by his former girlfriend Brenda Patea was taking place in Berlin. Patea alleged that Zverev pushed her against a wall and choked her during an argument in 2020, a claim he denied and dismissed as “complete bull****.” The case was settled on the morning of the Roland Garros semifinals, with Zverev agreeing to pay a 150,000 Euro fine and donate 50,000 to charity.

Another former girlfriend, Olya Sharapova, accused Zverev of abuse in 2021 in an article in Slate magazine but did not file any charges. Zverev also denied those allegations and sued the author of that piece in a German court (the case is still unresolved); meanwhile, the ATP investigated the incident and did find enough evidence to sanction him.

As time has gone on, those alleged incidents have faded into the background but are not forgotten by a number of fans and commentators like Mary Carillo, who pulled out of broadcasting the 2021 Laver Cup — a team event that pits Europe against the rest of the world — because of his participation.

Though they pale in comparison to domestic abuse allegations, there are other perceived transgressions by Zverev that have made him something of a bête noire on the ATP Tour.

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In 2022, Zverev was thrown out of a tournament in Acapulco for bashing an umpire’s chair with his racket over a disagreement about a call. During an outburst in Shanghai in 2024, Zverev snapped at an umpire: “Every Grand Slam final I lose is because of you guys, because of your mistakes.” He has repeatedly suggested that Alcaraz and Sinner benefit from systemic favoritism, an accusation as old as time in pro tennis regarding the top players. Even last month, he felt it was necessary to write a comment under one of Tennis Channel’s lighthearted pieces of content on Instagram where players answer trivia questions:

“Just a random question @tennischannel, why do I do all of these games and all these promotion activities with you guys, but then every time I get something right I get cut out of every single one? Just asking if you’re just interested in wasting my time or just hope that I get something wrong so you can then put that in? I know you have players that you love to hate and players that you love. So just please stop wasting my time then. Thank you.”

Litigating whether all this stuff makes Zverev a good guy or bad guy is a waste of time. But it unquestionably makes him an easy target to root against, which has been easy work for the haters during Grand Slams — up until now.

In 2020, Zverev flat-out blew it in the U.S. Open final when he led two sets to none against Thiem. He also had a chance to serve it out in the fifth set but retreated into a defensive shell and ultimately lost in a tiebreaker, establishing a narrative that the powerful Zverev plays his smallest tennis when it matters most.

He was also on the doorstep two years ago at Roland Garros, grabbing a two-sets-to-one lead in the final before Alcaraz steamrolled him 6-1, 6-2 in the final two sets to take the trophy. At the 2025 Australian Open, Zverev thought he was playing the best tennis of his career, poised to finally break through. Instead, Sinner humiliated him in three sets.

This time, if Zverev beats 20-year old Jakub Menšik of the Czech Republic in the semis, there will be no Sinner, Alcaraz or Djokovic waiting for him. Instead, for the first time, the world will see whether the cumulative scar tissue has primed Zverev to meet his moment or whether it’s destined to sink him again.

In many ways, it will be Zverev vs. himself — a contest that will either break him free of past demons or ensnare him in another mental pretzel, with stakes that will likely define the rest of his career.