From Monaco to Monaco, Flavio Cobolli is reborn: beat Zverev, is in the final
Flavio Cobolli forgets Munich–thanks to Munich. Indeed, the Italian goes to take the final of the ATP 500 tournament in Munich after the disappointment of Monte Carlo, and he does it in style. In fact, in the semifinals he manages to get the better of none other than Alexander Zverev, beating him decisively in two sets that lasted less than an hour and a quarter: 6-3, 6-3 the final score. In the decisive challenge for the awarding of the trophy on the Bavarian clay he will then face Ben Shelton, who in turn was victorious in two sets over Alex Molcan.
For Cobolli, pitted against not only the world number three but also the number one seed in the Munich tournament, the challenge with Zverev goes downhill already in the early stages. After managing tooth and nail to avoid even a break ball in the first game, it was he in the fourth to break serve from his emblazoned opponent. The second set opened immediately with another break for the Florence-born Roman, who was able to fly to 5-2 and react to the German’s immediate counterbreak by taking another serve and close the score again on 6-3.
More fatigue for Shelton, who also faced a much less emblazoned opponent than Cobolli. Against Molcan, number 166 on the ATP circuit, the U.S. took more than an hour and a half to close the score at 6-3, 6-4. Decisive are, in the first set, the break centered at 4-2 after an eternal game that was decided after no less than 12 points, and the one that made it 5-4 in the second set. Here the Slovak had been good at holding on for as many as 15 points in the third game, cancelling three break points to his rival.
For Cobolli, the victory over Zverev represents a moral revenge after a less than exciting beginning of 2026. The Italian had been eliminated in the second round of the Monte Carlo Masters 1000 by Belgian Alexander Blockx, who came from the qualifiers, with a clean 6-3, 6-3 in an hour and a half of play-a particularly bitter defeat considering that Cobolli was seeded No. 10 in the Principality. It was a knockout that was part of a string of seasonal disappointments, including elimination in the first round of the Australian Open at the hands of England’s Fery. His only notable high point in 2026 had come in Acapulco, where Cobolli won the Mexican Open by overcoming Tiafoe in the final.
Zverev, for his part, had arrived in Munich at the end of a difficult week, including on a mental level. At the Monte Carlo tournament he had been swept in the semifinals by Jannik Sinner with an eloquent 6-1, 6-4, suffering his seventh consecutive loss to the South Tyrolean champion. A performance the German himself had commented bitterly, “I won five games, I have the feeling that I didn’t play well this week. But I’m losing to him a lot this year, so I have to figure out what the main difference is.” Words that photograph a state of form far from the best, and which help frame the performance offered against Cobolli as well.
The final against Shelton still promises to be a fascinating challenge. The American, who was absent in Monte Carlo, found the court again in Munich and showed good condition despite a few too many difficulties against Molcan. For Cobolli, this is a golden opportunity to win the fourth title of his career on the major circuit and to relaunch himself strongly ahead of the major clay court events that await world tennis in the coming weeks, from Madrid to Rome to Roland Garros.
