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Enable Cookies<\/a> The world No 3 sent down a powerful ace to pocket the first set and \u200casserted himself with an early break at the start of the second set, as the 20-year-old Mensik’s level briefly dipped in his maiden Grand Slam semi-final.<\/p>\n Mensik sat with a \u2060towel over his head during a changeover \u200band his troubles deepened after the restart, \u200bwhen Zverev took his game up a few \u200bnotches and sealed a double break, before comfortably doubling \u2060his lead in the match.<\/p>\n After a long medical timeout for a neck issue, Czech Mensik mixed his booming \u2060serve with deft drop shots to \u200bbreak for a 4-2 lead en route to \u200bwinning the third set, but Zverev powered through the next with no drama to prevail.<\/p>\n Image: Mensik has announced himself as a likely major contender in the near future this fortnight, knocking out Alex de Minaur, Andrey Rublev and fellow young gun Joao Fonseca.<\/p>\n His run has been all the more impressive considering Mensik needed a wheelchair to get back to the locker room after collapsing in the heat after his second-round match.<\/p>\n But he had spent four hours more on court in reaching the last four than Zverev and he could not sustain the consistent level needed to really challenge the German.<\/p>\n Sunday will be Zverev’s fourth slam final and second in Paris after he lost to Carlos Alcaraz from two-sets-to-one up two years ago.<\/p>\n He came even closer in his maiden final against Dominic Thiem at the US Open in 2020, blowing a two-set lead and losing in a deciding tie-break, while he was well beaten by Jannik Sinner in the Australian Open final last year.<\/p>\n Had Mensik taken one of three chances to break at 4-3, things might have played out differently, but he was a little passive and paid the price three games later.<\/p>\n British umpire James Keothavong was kept busy adjudicating on a number of close calls, several of which brought him into conflict with Zverev, while he also gave the German a time violation for taking too long changing his racket.<\/p>\n But at the last the 29-year-old avoided any dips, converting his first match point when Mensik netted a backhand.<\/p>\n Cobolli through to maiden Grand Slam final after walkover vs virus-stricken Arnaldi<\/p>\n The second semi-final at Roland Garros didn’t take place on Friday, as Arnaldi \u200bwithdrew \u200bagainst fellow Italian \u200b\u2060Cobolli \u2060because \u200cof a \u200cviral illness, organisers confirmed.<\/p>\n Twitter<\/p>\n This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies. Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies. Enable Cookies<\/a> Cobolli knocked out Canadian fourth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the quarter-finals via a 4-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 victory. His previous best performance at a Grand Slam was making the quarter-finals at Wimbledon last year, where he lost to Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n Arnaldi, ranked 104 in the world, defeated the likes of Frances Tiafoe and Stefanos Tsitsipas in the tournament, and progressed to the semis when Matteo Berrettini was forced to retire during the second set of their quarter-final.<\/p>\n “It’s not what I wanted \u200cto do. Last night I started to feel unwell \u200band then at dinner I started to feel so in my stomach and then I \u200bwoke up at 1am and \u2060started vomiting,” Arnaldi told \u2060reporters.<\/p>\n “I could not sleep at all. At 6am-7am I vomited again \u200cand we called the doctor to the room and he gave me some stuff. But \u200cthen throughout today I could not eat – every time I would eat or drink I would go back to the bathroom.”<\/p>\n It will be \u2060Cobolli’s first Grand Slam final and \u200bhe will enter the top 10 \u200bwhen the world rankings are released \u200bon Monday.<\/p>\n “It’s also tough for me, when \u2060he came to me an hour ago I almost cried,” Cobolli said.<\/p>\n “It’s something you don’t \u2060expect at all, I was \u200bready to play this match. The only \u200bthing we’ll celebrate is breaking into the top 10.”<\/p>\n Watch the ATP and WTA Tours, live on Sky Sports or stream with NOW<\/a> and the Sky Sports app<\/a>, giving Sky Sports customers access to over 50 per cent more live sport this year at no extra cost. Find out more here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev moved to within touching distance \u200cof a maiden Grand Slam title, as the German fought past…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-623317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n Jakub Mensik, 20, struggled during the first two sets, but did win the third before faltering once more<\/p>\n
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