Alexander Zverev won his first Grand Slam title. Choose your own reaction

Alexander Zverev needed help. He would find it in the most unexpected way imaginable.

Twice he had led by a set against Flavio Cobolli in the Roland Garros final, and twice he had given that lead back. Just a few minutes earlier, he’d been within a couple of points of victory, only to see the younger and lower-ranked Italian snatch it from his jaws, 7-5 in a fourth-set tiebreaker. Now, for the third time in his career, the 29-year-old German was entering the fifth set of a Grand Slam final. He had lost the other two.

Was he about to do it again, and squander a chance to win his first major title without having to face Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, or Novak Djokovic?

At that moment, Zverev said he felt something he hadn’t felt in a decade. A cramp. Normally this would have been the worst development possible, a potential death knell for his chances. Instead, he welcomed the distraction from his own rising inner tension.

Read more: Alexander Zverev battles past Flavio Cobolli for first Grand Slam title of career at Roland Garros

“What kind of helped me, I was cramping a little bit, because I was emotional,” Zverev said. “I haven’t cramped in probably 10 years. I was very nervous, very kind of tightened up, and then, once I cramped, I relaxed, and that helped me.”

“I feel like I played better in the fifth set, I played more free, I played more aggressive.”

You could see that new freedom in every part of his game. After watching his double fault numbers build in the fourth set, Zverev came out and made 14 straight first serves in the fifth. He broke Cobolli for 0-2 with a nice drop shot that led to a winning pass. Most crucially, he saved two break points at 3-0, the second of them with an outstanding all-court defensive effort that led to a missed Cobolli overhead.

This court had some of my best memories, and also some of my biggest heartbreaks. Alexander Zverev about Court Philippe-Chatrier

From there, coming down the stretch, when he might have been expected to tense up even more, Zverev didn’t put a foot wrong. When Cobolli’s last smash went awry, he fell to the court, a Slam champ at last. He had been in nearly the same position, in nearly the same spot, under much different circumstances, four years earlier. In the semifinals here against Rafael Nadal in 2022, playing perhaps the match of his life, Zverev had tripped and torn ligaments in his right ankle, an injury that ended his season.

“This court had some of my best memories, and also some of my biggest heartbreaks,” Zverev said of Chatrier. “Laying on the floor, with seven broken ligaments and two fractured bones.”

Zverev knew as well as anyone that, with Alcaraz and Sinner absent, it was essentially now or never for him to put all of his bad memories behind him and rewrite his story.

“If I lost this final, I maybe would have never won a Slam,” he said. “Now that I’ve won this, it changes. I feel like I’ve done it. Maybe I can enjoy these finals a bit more, play my best tennis.”

Normally, a breakthrough win at a major is cause for celebration around the sport. The reaction to Zverev’s triumph is bound to be more mixed.

There are reasons, if you choose, to respect his achievement and his career. He’s a player who has many friendships among his colleagues, who doesn’t engage in gamesmanship on the court, who plays with juvenile diabetes, who has endured several crushing late-round defeats but kept going, and who survived the pressure of being the favorite over the past week.

There are also reasons, if you choose, not to laud his victory. He has been accused by two women of domestic abuse. In one case, an ATP investigation ended with no disciplinary action, due to “insufficient evidence.” The other case was settled out of court in Germany; Zverev paid a 200,000-euro settlement fine, without admitting guilt. He denies both allegations.

I don’t dismiss or ignore anything about Zverev, neither the good nor the allegedly bad. Watching the match today, my main thought was that it would have been fun to see Cobolli’s reaction to winning. Now that the match is finished, I’m glad the final was a good one, Zverev's quest is behind us, the tournament is over, and a whole new season starts tomorrow.