PARIS -- Alexander Zverev put an end to 19-year-old rising star Carlos Alcaraz's 14-match winning streak by holding him off to win 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7) on Tuesday night, reaching the semifinals at Roland Garros for the second year in a row.
A lot of folks were predicting that Alcaraz would leave this French Open as the champion. He might some day. Instead, it's Zverev who still has a shot at his first Grand Slam title.
"I told him at the net, 'You're going to win this tournament a lot of times, not just once,''' said the third-seeded Zverev, the runner-up at the US Open in 2020 and the gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics last summer. "I hope I can win it before he starts ... beating us all.''
Zverev will now go up against 13-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal, a 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (4) winner over defending champion and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in Tuesday night's far-more-anticipated, far-more-intriguing quarterfinal. That one was such a big deal that it was made available for free throughout France via the streaming service that has exclusive access to this year's night sessions at the clay-court major.
Alcaraz entered the quarterfinals with a tour-leading four titles and 32-3 record this season, 20-1 on clay. That includes a victory over the 25-year-old Zverev in the final of the Madrid Open on May 8 -- which followed Alcaraz's wins against Nadal and Djokovic there, making the teen the first player ever to beat both of those greats at the same tournament on the surface.
At Roland Garros, sixth-seeded Alcaraz was trying to become the youngest semifinalist since Nadal at 19 in 2005.
Zverev, though, managed to fix a notable blemish on his résumé: The German began the afternoon with a 0-11 record in Grand Slam matches against opponents in the top 10 of the ATP rankings.
"At the end of the day,'' Zverev said, "I knew that I had to play my absolute best tennis today from the start on.''
He sure got that start he wanted, staking himself to a two-set lead by using every bit of his 6-foot-6 frame to move into position for his free-swinging, ball-stinging groundstrokes.
Alcaraz, in contrast, was not at his highest level, accumulating 32 unforced errors over the first two sets alone, 17 more than Zverev in that span. Alcaraz finished with 56, Zverev with 34.
The spectators at Court Philippe Chatrier seemed to have their favorite from early on, regaling Alcaraz by singing his first name and responding with approval to his fist pumps and shouts of "Vamos!'' -- particularly as he made more of a match of things by cleaning up his strokes and using his usual array of drop shots to great effect.
After dropping the third set, Zverev served for the match at 5-4 in the fourth but got broken when Alcaraz ripped a backhand winner that left him screaming and pumping his fist -- and riled up the crowd.
Then, in the ensuing tiebreaker, Alcaraz held a set point at 6-5.
"The match,'' Zverev said, "was turning his way.''
Except Alcaraz plopped a backhand into the net, and soon Zverev had his first match point at 7-6, which he relinquished with his own netted backhand.
A soft drop volley earned a second chance to close it out, and this time Zverev did so with a backhand return winner.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.