Alexander Zverev is getting better and better in his first lawn tournament in two years. At the ATP tournament in Halle, Westphalia, the Olympic tennis champion easily won his round of 16 against Canadian Denis Shapovalov 6: 2, 6: 4 and is thus in the quarterfinals of the German lawn classic.
There the 26-year-old will face Chilean Nicolas Jarry on Friday. “I’m happy about the win. Denis can play very, very well on grass,” said Zverev. “The result sounds very clear, but it was closer. But I’m very satisfied.”
Zverev converted his third match point after 75 minutes in midsummer temperatures in the well-attended OWL Arena. After the clear two-set win at the start against Dominic Thiem on Tuesday, the native of Hamburg showed a further increase in performance and is in good form a week and a half before the start of Wimbledon. The third Grand Slam tournament of the season begins on July 3rd.
Zverev missed the entire grass season last year because he had suffered a serious foot injury in the semifinals of the French Open shortly before. In the rest of the season, Zverev has no more points to defend and can quickly make it back into the top ten in the world rankings. He is currently ranked 22nd.
No trouble from the start
Zverev had no trouble against Shapovalov from the start. The Paris semi-finalist managed a quick break, after just 31 minutes he got the first round with the second set ball. In the second set, too, Zverev quickly took over the service from the incorrectly acting Canadian. To the delight of his girlfriend Sophia Thomalla in the stands, Zverev’s victory was no longer in danger.
Jan-Lennard Struff also had a successful start in the Terra Wortmann Open. The currently best German tennis pro, who reached the final in Stuttgart last week, won his opening match against the Russian qualifier Roman Safiullin 6: 1, 7: 6 (7: 4). Struff will now meet Kazakh Alexander Bublik in the round of 16 this Thursday. In addition, Yannick Hanfmann fights against the Russian Andrei Rubljow for a place in the quarter-finals.
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