Alexander Zverev has opened up on his trip to Paris for the 2025 French Open as his plane was grounded on the way from Germany, after it was struck by lightning. Last year’s Roland-Garros runner-up found the funny side of the ordeal, before he eventually arrived in the French capital ahead of his latest Grand Slam bid. “Best story of Roland-Garros so far,” he joked.
Alexander Zverev had a memorable journey to Paris for the 2025 French Open when the plane he was travelling on was struck by lightning.
The German will bid for his first Roland-Garros crown – and first Grand Slam title – after coming mightily close to glory in the French capital in recent years.
Last year, he was beaten by Carlos Alcaraz across five sets in the final, and made the semi-finals in each of the three years before that.
Ahead of this year’s tournament, Zverev – who has since arrived safe and sound – endured a rocky start to his campaign before even arriving in the country.
“My trip here was funny because we were supposed to fly [on Thursday] evening at 6:45pm,” he explained.
“We took off from Hamburg and we were flying together with [Jiri] Lehecka, [Brandon] Nakashima, and some doubles guys, and we got struck by lightning funnily enough.”
“We had to do an emergency landing back in Hamburg and couldn’t find another plane, so everybody else flew the next morning. I took another plane and flew around 1am, so I arrived here at 3am.
“So that was quite funny. It was the first time I got struck by lightning mid-air, which was funny because there was just a little noise, no real wobbling, nothing.
“So, that was my trip over. Best story of Roland-Garros so far.”
Now that Zverev is in Paris, he can switch his full focus to his opening round match against American Learner Tien on Sunday.
The 28-year-old has had a patchy start to the clay season and will be keen to push on in search of his maiden Grand Slam win after reaching three finals.
He began the clay swing with a round-of-32 defeat at the Monte-Carlo Masters, before exiting the Madrid Open in the last 16 and the Italian Open at the quarter-final stage.
He did, however, pick up an ATP 500 title in his home country after he defeated Ben Shelton at the BMW Open in Munich in April.
