Roland-Garros 2025: shaken up, Carlos Alcaraz reaches the final and dreams of a double
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Carlos Alcaraz and Lorenzo Musetti have been hitting the ball for nearly an hour and twenty minutes this Friday afternoon on Court Philippe-Chatrier. On a serve from the Italian, the outgoing Roland-Garros winner works hard. He returns as best he can, runs to the net to get a drop shot, then goes back the other way and hits the ball between his legs. Coming up to the volley, Musetti finishes it off without forcing with a soft forehand that catches him off-guard. The Spaniard walks, frustrated, to his bench. And delivers a powerful kick to the metal structure, which hadn't asked for it.
The scene illustrates the difficulties encountered by Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-final of his favorite Grand Slam, jostled this Friday, June 6 for nearly two hours in front of 15,000 people before finally triumphing (4-6, 7-6, 6-0, 2-0) against an opponent who was ultimately let down by his physique. He will face the winner of the other semi-final, the one between Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic, in the final on Sunday, which will take place in the early evening.
To add a second consecutive Roland-Garros title to his list of achievements in two days, the Spaniard will have to do much better than what he showed on the court this Friday afternoon. Under a closed roof for no real reason, Carlos Alcaraz appeared tense for a long time. We saw him multiply unforced errors in the first set (16 for only 8 winners), tremble on his service games (41% of first serves passed), and never really seem able to outpace a serious and diligent Lorenzo Musetti. It was as if his right arm had suddenly gone haywire since his demonstration in the quarterfinals (a thrashing, 6-0, 6-1, 6-4, inflicted on the world number 12, Tommy Paul).
His level of play gradually returned in the second set, his supersonic shots and stifling rhythm with it. But Lorenzo Musetti, who reached the last four of the three reference tournaments on clay (Monte-Carlo, Madrid and Rome) before Roland-Garros, is on clay an opponent of a different caliber to Tommy Paul. Several times on the verge of breaking, broken twice, the Italian always came back, relying on a silky backhand , a solid forehand and a net game like there are few on the circuit. The match tipped in the tie-break. Lorenzo Musetti suddenly started to move less well, as if he had been given lead under his soles, and Alcaraz wrapped up the affair quickly (7-3).
The semi-final ended there. Musetti didn't put one foot in front of the other, calling the doctor after almost every game. Alcaraz didn't need to be asked twice to clinch the third set (6-0) before his opponent, visibly injured in the left thigh, surrendered early in the fourth, retiring after dropping his first service game.
Without shining, Carlos Alcaraz gave himself the chance to secure a double that only Gustavo Kuerten and Rafael Nadal have achieved at Porte d'Auteuil in the last thirty years in the men's competition. At just 22 years old, he could already win his fifth Grand Slam.
Libération
