Rome – Olympic tennis champion Alexander Zverev missed out on a place in the final of the clay court tournament in Rome. The 25-year-old lost in the semi-finals to Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 3-6, 3-6 in just over two and a half hours.
World number five Tsitsipas will face Serbia’s Novak Djokovic in the final at the Masters 1000 tournament in Italy, after he beat Norway’s Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-3 in the second semi-final. The world number three Zverev got off to a good start in the twelfth duel against Tsitsipas, who was ranked two places lower, winning the first set. But in the second set, the 23-year-old Greek got better and better into the match, while Zverev made too many errors. In the third set, Tsitsipas managed what was probably the decisive break in the fifth game – Zverev gave his opponent the break point with his fourth double fault of the match.
In what was already the third semi-final this year between the two world-class players, the Greek celebrated his second victory, not undeservedly. In Madrid a week ago he lost to Zverev in three sets, before that in Monte Carlo Tsitsipas had won clearly in two rounds. Overall, it was the eighth victory for the Greek tennis professional.
After beating Tsitsipas the previous week, Zverev had no chance against the young Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz in the Madrid final. So the Olympic champion still has room to improve for the French Open, which starts on 22 May.