Zverev questions Alcaraz's medical timeout after 5-set Australian Open loss
Carlos Alcaraz of Spain receives treatment during his semifinal match against Alexander Zverev of Germany at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
By JOHN PYE AP Sports Writer
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Alexander Zverev vented angrily on the court when Carlos Alcaraz was given a medical timeout in the third set of their Australian Open semifinal, and he didn’t backtrack on his opinion after losing an epic five-setter that lasted nearly 5 1/2 hours.
Zverev had first say in the semifinal post-match news conferences Friday, repeating more or less what he told a tournament supervisor on the court: He believed Alcaraz had cramps and it wasn’t cause for a medical timeout.
“Normally you can’t take a medical timeout for cramping” he said after the longest semifinal ever at the Australian Open. “What can I do? It’s not my decision. I didn’t like it, but it’s not my decision.”
Alcaraz arrived for his official news conference around two hours later and said he needed an assessment because the pain was very localized. That’s within the rules.
The 22-year-old Spaniard said he’d experienced cramps before but this felt different because it “was on a specific just one muscle, so I didn’t think (it) was cramp at all at the beginning.”
It wasn’t particularly hot by Melbourne standards, the afternoon match starting in temperatures close to 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) but dropping to around 27 Celsius (80F) when Alcaraz started to struggle around 2 hours, 40 minutes into the match.
“So I didn’t know exactly what it was, because I just go around to a forehand and then I started to feel it just in the right adductor,” he said. “That’s why I just called the physio, because it was just that moment.”
He said his left leg was fine at the time.
Timing
It all started in the ninth game of the third set — with Alcaraz two sets up — when he started limping and appeared to be struggling with an upper right leg problem.
After holding for 5-4, he took a medical timeout in the changeover. He rubbed the inside of his right thigh and called for the trainer, who also massaged the same area.
“With all the stress that I didn’t know what’s going on, didn’t know if it’s going to be worse or not, it came everything after all,” Alcaraz said. “In that moment I just talked to the physio. … He decided to take the medical timeout.”
Even with his limited footwork, Alcaraz was able to hit winners and get to 6-5 before the trainer returned in the changeover to massage the area again.
When he went back out, the crowd gave him rousing support. Zverev served a double-fault to open the next game, and Alcaraz lobbed and then slapped a forehand winner down the line to get to 0-30, getting within two points of victory. But Zverev won four straight points to force the tiebreaker and then win it.
The No. 3-seeded Zverev said that while he won the next two sets, he missed a chance to win them quicker and reserve energy for the fifth.
“Unbelievable fight, battle. Unfortunate ending for me, but to be honest, I had absolutely nothing left in me,” he said. “Normally I can rely on my serve a bit more. My legs stopped pushing upward, so yeah, that’s the way it is. This is life. We move on.”
Cramps
The issue of timing for rule interventions has caused wide public debate since the tournament’s extreme heat policy was activated while two-time defending champion Jannik Sinner was struggling with cramps in his third-round match. After a break for the roof to be closed, Sinner returned with way more energy and rallied to win.
There was plenty of online speculation about the medical timeout, too. But Zverev thought it was time to let it go.
“To be honest, I don’t want to talk about this right now, because I think this is one of the best battles there ever was in Australia,” he said. “It doesn’t deserve to be the topic now.”
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