The German tennis professional Alexander Zverev lost the semifinals against the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrow at the Masters tournament in Miami and thus missed his first place in a final of the 1000 ATP tournament series since May 2022. The Olympic champion had to admit defeat 4:6, 7:6, 4:6 after 2:37 hours in the hard court tournament worth nine million dollars.
Zverev couldn’t take Dimitrow’s service game away. Instead, the Bulgarian managed to break in the first set on Zverev’s last service game, and in the third set Dimitrov took the Hamburg native’s serve game for a 4-3 lead.
“It was like a close fight, we really went at each other, especially after the first set,” said Dimitrow after the duel with Zverev. “I thought he raised his game and was very strong throughout the second set. He put me under constant pressure.” Zverev determined the tiebreak early and thus forced a third set. Dimitrov, who surprisingly eliminated world number two Carlos Alcaraz from Spain in the quarterfinals, will climb into the top ten of the world rankings.
In the final on Sunday (local time) the Bulgarian will face Jannik Sinner from Italy. The Australian Open winner won again against Russian Daniil Medvedev 6-1, 6-2 in a repeat of the final in Melbourne. The 22-year-old outclassed last year’s winner Medvedev after just 1:09 hours, after both had faced each other in five sets in 3:44 hours at the Australian Open. “Daniil made more mistakes than usual and I took my chance,” said Sinner.
