Alexander Zverev has confidently overcome the next hurdle on his mission to defend his title at the ATP Masters in Paris and is in the quarter-finals.
The third in the world rankings prevailed 6:2, 6:4 against the Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the French capital. “I’m very happy with my level today,” said Zverev in the on-court interview: “Hopefully I can improve even further for tomorrow.”
Zverev will now face his feared opponent Daniil Medvedev from Russia on Friday.
Zverev lost 13 of the last 15 duels against Medvedev; overall, from the German number one’s point of view, the record after 21 meetings is 7:14. In the final spurt of the season, Zverev recently gained self-confidence with an “incredibly positive week” including participation in the final in Vienna.
Dominant and almost flawless
In the first round, Zverev, who will be competing at the ATP Finals in Turin and the Davis Cup finals in Bologna at the end of the year in November, only managed to prevail against the Argentinian Camilo Ugo Carabelli with great difficulty. On Thursday evening he appeared very dominant from the start.
On the very slow surface in the La Defense rugby arena, the Hamburg player hardly made any simple mistakes. Zverev acted powerfully from the baseline and was repeatedly successful with net attacks. He confirmed an early break with some difficulty, but then he couldn’t be stopped on the way to winning the set.
Little spider didn’t slow down Zverev
A balanced second round developed, Davidovich Fokina took a medical timeout when the score was 3:2 and had his thigh treated. However, there were no restrictions to be seen for the world number 15.
Nevertheless, Zverev was finally on the road to victory with a break to make it 4:3 – and he didn’t let himself be disturbed by a small spider that he had the referee remove. The world number three used his first match point to win.