French Open: Tsitsipas in first Slam final after Zverev slugfest as Djokovic defeats Nadal to reach final

Stefanos Tsitsipas became the youngest man to make it to a Grand Slam title round since Briton Andy Murray at the 2010 Australian Open when the 22-year-old from Greece overcame a fighting Alexander Zverev of Germany 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3 at the French Open on Friday.

World No.5 Tsitsipas, who is through to his maiden major final of his career after a three-hour and 37-minute slugfest against Zverev, also became the first player from Greece to make it to a Grand Slam final.

Tsitsipas will meet the winner of the second semi-final between 13-time French Open champion,  and Serbian world No.1 Novak Djokovic, who defeated Nadal. Tsitsipas trails Djokovic 2-5.

The win ended Tsitsipas's losing streak in Grand Slam semi-finals -- he had also entered the semi-finals of the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021. Tsitsipas, competing in his fourth major semi-final, capitalised on a nervous start from Zverev to win the first three games in 11 minutes and the opening set in 38 minutes.

The Greek, who is now 6-4 in five-set matches, then clawed back from 0-3 down in the second set by winning seven straight games. Zverev, however, struck back with his serve-dominated play to take the next two sets.

The German started to play his best tennis in the fourth set, winning 20 of 24 service points. But Tsitsipas recovered from 0/40 in the first game of the decider and some costly errors by Zverev handed the momentum back to the Greek.

Tsitsipas saved three break points in his opening service game of the fifth set before opening up a 4-1 lead. Zverev saved four match points to hold for 3-5 but it only delayed the inevitable by one game as Tsitsipas sealed the win with an ace.

Djokovic defeats Rafael Nadal

Novak Djokovic dashed Rafael Nadal's hopes of winning a record 21st Grand Slam title and his 14th French Open after the world No. 1 overcame the Spaniard 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-2 in a four-hour-22-minute semi-final that was replete with moments of brilliance as well as errors.

Nadal, who went into the match with 105-2 (win-loss) record and with a 7-1 record against the Serb, was the outright favourite to win the match and set up a final clash with Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas. For, he had lost only one set in this year's tournament prior to Friday's semi-final.

But the chinks in his game began to show early. The first set, though won by the Spanish world No. 3 with a 6-3 margin, went on for 61 minutes. Nadal saved a couple of break-points in the very first game of the match and then went 5-0 up before Djokovic fought back to show that he is up for the fight and won't take the Nadal challenge lying down.

The Serb, who was also the last player to beat Nadal in the French Open back in the 2015 quarter-finals, then took the second set. The seventh game was the heart of the set, indeed the match, as neither gave an inch.

Djokovic played some beautiful shots, some cross-courts even as he made some glaring errors. But the game that went on for over 10 minutes saw Nadal hitting the ball outside the court on number of occasions and being forced to commit errors. The ninth game too stretched for long before the Serb sealed it. He won the set 6-3.

The third set, which saw heavy duty and sparring tennis, went into a tie-breaker after Djokovic had broken a tired looking Nadal in the fifth game. Nadal broke back in the sixth game. The see-saw battle went on before the top seed sealed the set 7-4 in tie-break and took a 2-1 lead after three sets.

Reaches final to take a shot at Tsitsipas

The fourth set saw unrelenting Nadal breaking Djokovic but then the Serb won the final six games to seal a place in the final against Tsitsipas.

While Djokovic won 64 percent points on his first serve and 55 percent on second serve, Nadal won 59 percent on first and 49 percent on second. The Serb converted eight of the 22 break-points he got as against six out of 16 by Nadal. The biggest difference though were the double faults. Nadal committed eight of them against Djokovic's three.

Between 2005, when he won his first French Open and 2020 when he won his last of the 13, Nadal had not won the title at Roland Garros only on three occasions --- in 2009, when he lost to Robin Soderling in the fourth round; in 2015, when he lost to Djokovic in the quarter-finals and in 2016 when he had to pull out of the third round due to injury.