Shortly before 4 p.m. on this summery Wednesday, Tomás Martín Etcheverry stepped out of the small tunnel that leads to Court Philippe-Chatrier. He looked up, to the right, to the left, his eyes darting around curiously. It was immediately apparent that he was breaking new ground. The Argentine, 23, from La Plata had never played in the mighty main arena of the French Open. After all, he has a dog that is really called “Roland Garros” – Roland Garros is also what the French call their clay court classic. So far, however, he has not had any more connection to the French Open.
Half a minute later, Alexander Zverev followed him onto the pitch. For the German, this walk out onto Center Court was something like day-to-day business. The 26-year-old had played three times in the course of this tournament in the so-called night session, and some in the state capital may have wondered whether only this giant from Hamburg, who lives in Monte Carlo, is allowed to play at night and forbids others is.
So it was really two players that made a lot of difference: Etcheverry experienced a lot of premieres these days. He reached the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time, then the round of 16 for the first time, and now, in a duel with Zverev, he even fought to make it into the semifinals. There, in the round of four, Zverev was already in the two previous years, in 2022 he had to give up due to the torn ligament he suffered in the game against Rafael Nadal. Etcheverry also kept up quite well, but in the end the experience and the playful class of the Olympic champion prevailed. After 3:25 hours it was clear: Twelve months after the fateful fall, Zverev qualified again for the semi-finals of Roland Garros. Indeed a great success.
After the 6: 4, 3: 6, 6: 3, 6: 4 victory, Zverev stood for a short interview with former Spanish professional Alex Corretja. “I’m in the semi-finals of Roland Garros, I’m just happy,” he said, mentioning that he had just come through “the most difficult year of my career”. Zverev beamed, he kept running his hand through his mane, full of anticipation he said to the spectators: “See you on Friday.” Then there is the semifinals. In the last four he meets the winner of the Scandinavian duel between Holger Rune (Denmark) and Casper Ruud (Norway).
In the first set, Zverev managed the decisive break when he took the service game from Etcheverry to make it 4: 3. He convinced with a game that is considered powerful in tennis, which means he gave the opponent hardly any opportunities to score free points, to win, and patiently and with few mistakes built up his own point gains. His shots were of good length, so Zverev kept the pressure on Etcheverry constant.
The second set initially remained balanced, but then Etcheverry managed to break to 4:2. He conceded it again immediately, but Zverev immediately made two double mistakes, plus an overhead ball behind the baseline – the next break for Etcheverry gave him the decisive advantage with which he won this round. Etcheverry also deserved this sense of achievement.
Offered a lot of resistance: Tomás Martín Etcheverry.
(Photo: Benoit Tessier/Reuters)
With his hard topspin forehand, he was very reminiscent of this former slingshot by his famous compatriot Juan Martín del Potro, who made himself immortal by winning the US Open in Argentina in 2009. His headband and a light beard were also similar to del Potros’ style at the time. Etcheverry, of course, has his own story, having touched the crowd in Paris with his knee on the pitch after his round of 16 win over Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka. His sister died of breast cancer last year, he dedicated the victory to her, she is always with him in his thoughts. This season Etcheverry achieved the biggest performance boost of his career, he is 49th in the world rankings and will be even higher after the French Open.
Zverev was the better Argentine against the man from La Plata
Zverev got off to a false start in the third set, lost his service game again, and even if he got it back to make it 2-2 and celebrated a cry of self-cheering for the first time, it was already clear: If he wanted to win, he had to get involved with this tough opponent , who repeatedly pulled him into those rallies that are typical for professionals from Argentina: Like in the cult computer game Pacman, Etcheverry rushed to cover the width of the field, kept his shots consistently high, occasionally throwing in a poisonous stop, and when he did one Seeing Chance, he got more aggressive with the forehand. Zverev had to defeat him with the weapons of an Argentine – and do better everything that Etcheverry did well. He did just that.
He secured the third set after breaking the 4:2. The fourth set was the most intense and lasted 61 minutes, Zverev cracked Etcheverry’s serve when the score was 3: 3. He held his hard-fought service game to 5:3 and finally turned his first match point into victory. Yes, Zverev was the better Argentine.
“I’m not saying everything is great, I’ve achieved everything,” Zverev said before his quarter-final match and also made it clear that he now wanted to go all the way: “Of course I want to continue, reach the semi-finals and then move on.” Only the title counts for him. He finally wants to be a Grand Slam winner after experts believed he was capable of this success early on, but he has not yet succeeded.