Even without the injured Olympic champion Alexander Zverev, the German tennis men are only missing one victory for the surprising semi-finals in the Davis Cup.
Jan-Lennard Struff won a tennis thriller against the favored Canadian Denis Shapovalov 6: 3, 4: 6, 7: 6 (7: 2) at the start of the quarterfinals in Málaga and put Oscar Otte in an optimal starting position.
With a win against world number six Felix Auger-Aliassime, Otte could make everything clear in the second single on Thursday evening.
Struff started furiously as the current number 152 in the world and twice took the serve from Shapovalov in the first round. As a result, the left-hander’s aggressive baseline shots caused more and more problems for the German. In a nerve-wracking decisive game, the Warsteiner initially missed two match points, but finally secured the first point for Germany after more than two hours.
