French Open: Alexander Zverev clearly puts Grigor Dimitrov in his place in difficult conditions

“What I really liked today was the way I came out. The way I played the first set, was there from the start. It wasn’t like that against Tiafoe and I knew I had to improve on that because Dimitrov can do it play incredibly when he’s in the lead,” drew Alexander Zverev in the Eurosport interview balance sheet.

The 26-year-old did indeed get off to a dream start in the round of 16. The Hamburger took the first service game from Dimitrov, led shortly afterwards with a double break and had the first set in his pocket after just 30 minutes.

“Sascha is wide awake and takes the chances that come his way,” praised Boris Becker at Eurosport the courageous appearance in the initial phase. Dimitrov, on the other hand, “doesn’t know how to win the rallies”.

In fact, Zverev had impressive numbers after the first set. He converted all three break chances into a break, and he came up with the perfect point rate of 100 percent on the first serve.

Then the situation was reversed in the second set: it was Dimitrov who reduced his error rate significantly in difficult wind conditions and had the better arguments.

Wind lottery and 14 Zverev points in a row

The Bulgarian, seeded in 28th position, broke Zverev to 3: 2 and increased to 4: 2. Dimitrov was the better man in this phase – until Zverev turned it up. The Olympic champion made an intermediate sprint of 14 point wins in a row and suddenly leads 5:4.

The wind now clearly affected the game and the players’ shots. Zverev’s praise for the break (4: 4), for example, fell steeply and gave the world number 27. the point. After 91 minutes, Zverev had also won the second set.

“It’s a difficult game with or against the wind, you can’t really judge where the ball will go,” said Becker. However, Zverev coped better with the adversity than his opponent.

Zverev: “Hopefully there’s more to come”

The 26-year-old pulled away 3-0 thanks to an early break. It smelled like a decision. Dimitrov hadn’t lost his powder yet, the 32-year-old hit back with three games in a row and equalized.

“For my taste, Sascha is acting too predictably at the moment,” criticized Becker. A weakness that Zverev quickly turned off and in turn made it into the quarter-finals with three games in a row. After 2:17 hours, Germany’s number one used the first match point. “Sascha did a lot of things right,” praised Becker.

“Hopefully there’s still a lot to come, because I don’t want to go anymore,” said Zverev, who is the clear favorite in the next round against Tomás Martín Etcheverry.