Another tough run for Alexander Zverev. The 2025 Australian Open finalist walked into his second straight semifinal at Melbourne Park full of purpose. But Carlos Alcaraz turned out to be the tougher player. Both mentally and physically, as he battled through cramps and the loss of the third and fourth sets to seal the deal. Zverev didn’t back down either. Still, keeping pace wasn’t easy.

“Unbelievable fight, battle,” Alexander Zverev said in his press conference. “Unfortunate ending for me, but to be honest, I had absolutely nothing left in me. So even at 5-4, normally I can rely on my serve a bit more, but my legs stopped pushing upwards. So yeah, just the way it is. This is life. We move on.”

Sascha came within touching distance of a fourth major final. He clawed his way from two sets down in a gritty battle that looked poised to hand Alcaraz just his second-ever fifth-set loss. Yet after more than three exhausting hours, frustration wasn’t what lingered most. It wasn’t the missed chance to serve it out at 5-4 that haunted him. There was another regret from that night.

“Yeah, the second set. That one, for me, I felt like I should have won. Especially serving for it, I didn’t play a good game serving for it. Funny enough, I don’t have many regrets in the fifth set because I was hanging on for dear life, to be honest. I was exhausted.”

“But yeah, the second set. I think going up, being one set all, and then him starting to cramp in the third set, that probably would have made a difference.”

This is a developing story…