Alexander Zverev happily threw a tennis ball into the Paris night sky and enjoyed the cheering of the fans: The Olympic champion’s journey back to the top of the world continues. With a largely convincing performance, Zverev also defeated the experienced Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov and is in the quarterfinals of the French Open.
“It’s incredible for me to be back in the quarterfinals and I’m extremely happy,” said Zverev after the 6: 1, 6: 4, 6: 3 late Monday evening in Paris, where he had previously been after 2:17 hours converted first match point. The 26-year-old is fighting in the top eight on Wednesday for his third semi-final in a row in Roland Garros. A year after the serious ankle injury, Zverev is getting better and better at his favorite tournament and is the favorite in the game against unseeded Argentinian Tomas Martin Etcheverry.
Zverev, who had already convinced against Frances Tiafoe in the third round, found the game excellent: Even with long rallies, he acted confidently, hardly made any mistakes and consistently punished those of his opponent. Dimitrov, 32, had thrown Daniel Altmaier out of the tournament in the third round, but was initially unable to build on his strong performance.
Which was also due to Zverev, who acted extremely variably and scored twice as many points as his opponent in the first set. Consequently, the first round went to the Germans after just 31 minutes. “Hopefully it will still go far for me,” Zverev said before the game – and he did his best in the second round to achieve this goal.
In the second set, Zverev scored 14 points in a row
A brass band played fanfares from the stands – Dimitrov slowly woke up in the second set, stabilized, Zverev made more and more unnecessary mistakes. First, the Hamburg player fended off the opponent’s first two breakballs when the score was 1:1. But the Bulgarian used number three to make it 2: 3 from Zverev’s point of view. The ranks of the Court Philippe-Chatrier filled up noticeably, the audience initially hit the sides of Dimitrov, who was behind. Zverev was not deterred by the “Grigor, Grigor” calls and took his opponent’s serve to zero. The German scored a total of 14 points in a row. Zverev missed four set balls – on the fourth a backhand from Dimitrov sailed into the net – 6: 4.
In the first two service games of the third round, Zverev fended off a total of seven breakballs. Even a gust of wind that kicked up a lot of sand didn’t faze him. Dimitrov was emotionally cracked and immediately conceded the break. After a 3-0 lead, Zverev conceded the 3-3 again – and brought the victory home safely.