The spectators at the Stade Roland Garros caught their breath. Alexander Zverev kept crying and screaming. The 25-year-old lay in the red sand and expressed his pain.

On the home stretch of the second set, the German twisted his ankle badly on the baseline. When trying to prevent the tie-break, the man from Hamburg fell and had to end the semi-finals of the French Open against Rafael Nadal early with a score of 6: 7 (8:10), 6: 6. He was pushed off the pitch in a wheelchair.

A marathon match had announced itself up to the abrupt end. Although the second round wasn’t over yet, the two opponents had been facing each other for more than three hours. The first set was a record for the 2022 tournament at 98 minutes. Round two would probably have exceeded the duration.

With a win in the final on Sunday, Zverev would have had the chance to finally secure his first title in a Grand Slam tournament and thus become number one in the world rankings.

More to come.