Two more wins until the first title in Halle!
Alexander Zverev is in excellent form a week and a half before the start of Wimbledon and can hope for his first triumph on the German lawn classic. The tennis Olympic champion won his quarterfinals against Chilean Nicolas Jarry 7: 5, 6: 3 and is thus in the semifinals for the first time since 2017 in East Westphalia.
In the fight for the finals, the native of Hamburg will face Alexander Bublik this Saturday. The Kazakh, who eliminated Jan-Lennard Struff in the round of 16, benefited from Jannik Sinner’s abandonment due to injury. From his point of view, the Italian could not continue playing after a fall at a score of 5: 7, 0: 2.
In the second semi-final, the Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut, who knocked out the number one seeded Russian Daniil Medvedev 7: 5, 7: 6 (7: 3), and the Russian Andrei Rublev meet. Rublev defeated the Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor 3: 6, 6: 3, 6: 4.
“It was a hell of a lot of fun today”
Zverev has been in the final twice in Halle so far. In 2016 he lost to Florian Mayer, a year later to Roger Federer. “Of course I’m extremely happy to be back in the semifinals in Germany. It was a lot of fun today. It was an incredibly nice atmosphere,” said Zverev after his deserved victory. “I got a little nervous at the end, but I think that’s normal.”
However, Zverev is not yet satisfied with the semi-finals. “I hope I have two more games here. I’m not done yet.” After his early exit at the BMW Open in Munich, Zverev reported in April about the great pressure he felt when performing at home. So far in Halle he has presented himself as relaxed and relaxed. “For me, it’s always about mastering the first round. I’ve never managed to do that in Munich in the past few years. I was very nervous here before the first game. But it went well from the start and then it works have fun.”
Zverev acted concentrated in the well-filled OWL Arena from the start. Especially with his own serve, the crowd’s favorite didn’t burn much. After he could not use three breakballs when the Chilean served when the score was 3:2, he made the decisive break to make it 7:5 and got the first round after 57 minutes with the first set ball. Zverev clenched his fist, his girlfriend Sophia Thomalla jumped up enthusiastically in the stands – everything went according to plan for the semi-finalist of the French Open.
Zverev couldn’t be stopped in the second set either. The 26-year-old managed a quick break. When the score was 4:2, he then had to fend off the first three breakballs of the game against himself, but won a long service game. Jarry didn’t give up, but Zverev brought the victory to the finish and can therefore continue to dream of the first title in the German lawn classic.
