Tennis Olympic champion Alexander Zverev easily won his opening match at the ATP Masters in Indian Wells.
After a bye at the start of the tournament, the Hamburg player beat Argentinian Pedro Cachin 6-3, 6-1 in California on Friday evening (local time) and advanced safely to the third round. There the world number 14 meets. on Emil Ruusuvuori from Finland.
Zverev acted in a highly concentrated manner, even several breaks in the rain did not bring the German number one off track. His opponent, number 66 in the world, could only keep up at the beginning, then Zverev dictated almost at will. After 1:17 hours of pure playing time – the game lasted more than three hours due to the weather-related interruptions – Zverev converted his second match point.
In the quarterfinals, Russia’s Daniil Medvedev, 2021 US Open winner, could wait. Before that, however, Zverev has to take the Finnish hurdle Ruusuvuori, against whom he lost the only comparison so far in 2021.
Stefanos Tsitsipas, who was in second place, has already been eliminated. The Greek surprisingly lost to the Australian Jordan Thompson 7: 6 (7: 0), 4: 6, 7: 6 (7: 5). Oscar Otte is also over after the second round. The man from Cologne lost 3:6, 3:6 against Karen Chatschanov from Russia.
In addition to Zverev, only Jan-Lennard Struff is in the tournament. The 32-year-old from Warstein meets the American Tommy Paul in his second round duel on Saturday.