Alexander Zverev still has his sights firmly set on a second tournament win in his comeback season. Jan-Lennard Struff, on the other hand, has suffered a setback
Alexander Zverev still has his sights firmly set on a second tournament win in his comeback season. The top-seeded Olympic tennis champion is through to the semi-finals of the hard-court tournament in Chengdu, China. On Sunday, he defeated Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia 5-7, 7-5, 6-2 in a hard-fought match full of twists and turns after just under three hours.
For Jan-Lennard Struff, however, the comeback after his painful hip injury is already over. The 33-year-old from Warstein, who is seeded third, lost his quarter-final against Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka 4-6, 5-7 in Zhuhai, China. In the round of 16, the German number two defeated Chile’s Cristian Garin in his first ATP match since the end of June. The eighth-seeded Japanese proved to be too big for him on Sunday.
Zverev weakens in decisive phase
In the battle to reach his 32nd final on the ATP Tour, Zverev, who had already won his home match in Hamburg this year, will take on Grigor Dimitrov (Bulgaria/No. 3) on Monday. “I don’t care who I play,” said the world number ten.
The Hamburg player had a hard time with the seventh-seeded Kecmanovic from the beginning, but he immediately made up for a break by the Serb to go 3:1 up. However, Zverev weakened again in the decisive phase of the first set.
In the second set, Zverev increased the pressure but missed three chances to go 4:1 up. Instead, he allowed Kecmanovic to come back, partly due to a lack of consistency in his game, and was only two points away from defeat at 4:5. But Zverev again pulled the momentum on his side, forced the deciding set and now left no more doubts.
Zverev had returned to the tour in Chengdu after suffering a thigh injury in the US Open quarter-finals against Carlos Alcaraz in early September.
