At the start of the ATP tournament in Bastad, Sweden, Alexander Zverev still had a hard time with the Slovak Alex Molcan, two days after the narrow 6: 4-3: 6-7: 5 success, the German suddenly presented himself in frighteningly strong form.
With the grass season behind him, Alexander Zverev is currently returning to clay in Bastad, Sweden. The Brazilian Thiago Monteiro felt on Thursday that this surface suits the DTB’s number one. Zverev needed a little more than 60 minutes to put the South American in his place. Overall, Zverev only played one game and won 6: 1 and 6: 0.
Zverev fielded 80 percent of his first serves, then made the point in 26 out of 33 cases and only had to fend off two breakballs in the entire match. Monteiro, for his part, number 122 in the world, never found his game.
It was the second comparison of the two players. Zverev was also able to win the first meeting in two sets in 2022.
Zverev, who last failed in the third round at Wimbledon, is still looking for consistency after his serious ankle injury. He could take another step in the right direction in the quarter-finals of the clay court tournament, which is endowed with 630,705 euros.
Will there be a duel with Zverev’s doubles partner?
Then Andrey Rublev, number seven in the world, is waiting for the German. Against the Russian, with whom the Hamburg player regularly starts in doubles, Zverev has an outstanding record with five wins in six matches.
Rublev, for his part, eliminated his Russian compatriot Pavel Kotov in the round of 16 (6:3, 7:6).
The other quarter-final pairings have already been determined: Number one seeded Casper Ruud will play Austria’s Sebastian Ofner, Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti will meet Filip Misolic, also an Austrian, and Federico Coria and Francisco Cerúndolo will face off in an Argentine duel.