Alexander Zverev entered 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,” 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.”

Zverev 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.”

Alcaraz battled through physical issues deep in the third set but somehow found another gear when the match hit its most dramatic point. In a pulsating fifth set, the world No. 1 showed why his five-set record now reads an incredible 15-1.

The clash turned into the longest semi-final in the tournament’s history, pushing both men past their limits. At 4-4 in the third, Alcaraz’s movement faltered, prompting treatment on his right thigh during the change of ends.

The energy shifted again as the Spaniard refused to fade in the decider, while Sascha’s annoyance over how things played out lingered in the background.

Alexander Zverev fumes over Alcaraz’s MTO

Early in the match, Carlos told his team he had thrown up and might need medication. It was a sudden confession that instantly raised concerns about his fitness. By the third set, those fears started to take visible form. He kept shaking out his right leg and grimacing through the pain in his knee and thigh, somehow still holding serve to go up 5-4.

Then came the flashpoint. Just as Alexander Zverev was about to serve, Alcaraz called for a medical timeout for treatment on his right quad and thigh. The break came at a high-stakes moment, and Zverev’s frustration was written all over his face.

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“It’s unbelievable that he can get treated for cramps. This is bullsh*t,” the German yelled in protest, arguing that such treatment shouldn’t be allowed.

Even as the World No.3 pleaded with the officials, Carlos stayed calm, focused on the physio working on him. According to the rules, a player can request a medical timeout for an injury, but not for cramping. That difference only deepened Zverev’s irritation. He was set to serve after the changeover, yet the delay stretched on while Alcaraz’s treatment continued.

When asked about it later in his post-match press conference, Alcaraz didn’t dodge the question or the confusion:

“I didn’t think it was cramp at all in the beginning,” he told reporters. “So I didn’t know what exactly it was. I just go around to a forehand, and I started to feel it just in the right abductor. So that’s why I just called the physio, because it was just that moment. The rest of the legs, the left leg, was good. I mean, not good, but decent.”

For now, Zverev’s wait for a first Grand Slam final continues. The German has shown grit at the Australian Open (finalist last year, semifinalist now), but Alcaraz proved too tough to crack.

The Spaniard is through to his maiden AO final, where he’ll face 10-time champion Novak Djokovic. Can the 22-year-old topple the king of Melbourne and lift his first trophy Down Under?