VIDEO. “It's not possible”: a referee's mistake changed a lot of things in the Roland-Garros final between Zverev and Alcaraz

Le révélateur a montré que le service d’Alcaraz était bien faute. Capture d'écran X/Maxppp

Alors que l’on jouait le cinquième set lors de la finale de Roland-Garros entre Alexander Zverev et Carlos Alcaraz, une erreur d’arbitrage a profité à l’Espagnol, qui s’est ensuite imposé grâce à un niveau de jeu exceptionnel en fin de match.

You miss a millimeter, and everything is depopulated. This is undoubtedly what Alexander Zverev could say to himself, beaten after an exceptional final against Carlos Alcaraz, allowing the Spaniard to win Roland-Garros for the first time in his young career.

At the very beginning of the fifth set, the German was indeed the victim of an error on the part of the French referee Renaud Lichtenstein, while he would have had to take his opponent's serve in an extremely important moment.

A damaging error

After being broken himself in this fifth set, Zverev then managed to obtain two break points to come back to level in this unbreathable end to the match. It was then that Alcaraz committed a double fault at 15-40 on his serve, to allow the German to equalize at 2-2.

But while the linesman announced the foul ball, the French referee immediately got off his chair to reverse this decision and announce this foul ball. All this caused the dismay of Zverev, who kept repeating in English: "It’is not possible".

😅 Le désarroi de Zverev sur cette décision de l'arbitre ! #RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/lhTV40XmQo

— Prime Video Sport France (@PVSportFR) June 9, 2024

Alcaraz succeeds in keeping his serve, then wins the final thanks to a completely crazy level of play and wins for the first time at Roland-Garros.

The end of linesmen in 2025

But according to the hawk-eye used only by television channels to show viewers the mark of a ball, Alacaraz's serve was indeed wrong by a few millimeters, which would have was able to change quite a few things in this last round.

Zverev not happy with the umpire in the 5th set against Alcaraz at Roland Garros.

Break point down, Carlos hits a second serve that was called out.

The umpire overrules it.

The visual on tv says it was out by 2 mm.

Tough. pic.twitter.com/cofm3Pv7A0

— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) June 9, 2024

As a reminder, line judges will disappear from ATP circuit matches starting next season, thanks to an automatic system already existing on several tournaments, as at the previous season. US Open. Each Grand Slam will, however, be able to decide on the course of action to follow.

Zverev: "They're humans, it's normal"

After the meeting, the main party came back with class on this decision. "It's frustrating, it's true in the end, but that's how it is, Alexander Zverev said at a press conference. 

"Referees make mistakes, they are human, it's normal, we have to accept it. In a situation like this, we would prefer that there were no errors, he continued.