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Your support makes all the difference.Carlos Alcaraz will celebrate his first French Open title with a tattoo of the Eiffel Tower.
Alcaraz made history and gained a measure of Spanish revenge by beating Alexander Zverev in five sets at Roland Garros.
The 21-year-old filled a Rafael Nadal-sized void at the tournament with a marathon 6-3 2-6 5-7 6-1 6-2 victory in a see-saw match lasting four hours and 19 minutes.
Fourth seed Zverev had sent old warrior Nadal out on his shield for probably the last time in the first round.
But young pretender Alcaraz vanquished the German to join fellow Spaniard Nadal as the only men to lift the Roland Garros trophy aged under 22.
Alcaraz already has the dates of his previous grand slam wins, at the 2022 US Open and Wimbledon last year – along with a strawberry – inked on an arm and a leg.
He said: “I have to find the time. But I will do it for sure. It’s going to be on the left ankle.
“You know, Wimbledon was the right one. Here is going to be the left one, I think so with the Eiffel Tower with the date of today. And, yeah, it’s something that I’m gonna do.
“I don’t know if next week or a month or two months, but I will do it.”
Alcaraz watched the French Open, and his hero Nadal, as a child and always seemed destined to win it one day.
“In Roland Garros, knowing all the Spanish players who have won this tournament and to be able to put my name on that amazing list is something unbelievable,” he added.
“It’s something that I dreamt about, being in this position, since I started playing tennis, since I was five, six years old. So it’s a great, great feeling.”
Nadal, the 14-time winner at Roland Garros, was among the first to congratulate his protege.
He wrote on X: “Congratulations for this immense victory!!!! Big!!!! Very happy for your successes!!! #Vamos.”
Zverev pointed to a key moment in the fifth set when, at 15-40 up, an Alcaraz second serve was called out only to be ruled good – apparently in error – by umpire Nico Helwerth.
“I feel like I did everything I could today. The fifth set, there was some unlucky moments,” he said. “I heard that at 2-1 the second serve was out. From the HawkEye data, I saw that. I break back there, I have break chances, and then in the next service game, a fifth set can go the other way.
The 27-year-old, whose defeat came two days after a trial over domestic abuse allegations, which he denied, was discontinued, added: “Look, he played fantastic. He played better than me the fourth and fifth set. It’s how it is.”
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