(Update 1: change heads, add Djokovic, Berrettini matches)
New York, September 6th (EFE) .- The German number 4 in the world, Alexander Zverev, continued his impressive march through the US Open draw and the summer hard court season and got a 6-4, 6-4, 7 -6 (9- 7) Round of 16 victory on Monday over the Italian promoted Jannik Sinner.
Zverev had complete control of the game for the first two and a half sets, using his huge weapon on first serve, rock solid groundstrokes, and an underrated defense to keep his nose ahead.
The stat told the story when the 24-year-old German dominated his service games in the first two sets with a 72 percent win rate on the first serve and a whopping 64 percent clip on the points on the second serve.
The momentum began to shift towards the end of the third set, however, when the 20-year-old Italian hit his first break of the game at 4-4 and began dictating the rallies with his terrifying groundstrokes.
Sinner then had the golden chance to get the third set in the tiebreaker, but he made a costly forehand error, which was not enforced at 6: 5 on the sideline, and then another in the net when he was after the match point.
Zverev’s serve made the big difference in a competition where players were pretty even from the baseline, with the German collecting 17 aces versus Sinners five and being broken twice as few as his opponent (one versus three).
“Confident players who have played a lot of games usually know what to do in situations like this,” said Zverev, who won gold at the Tokyo Games last month and took the Cincinnati Masters title and is now on a winning streak of 15 Playing is in an interview after the game.
“I think I played pretty good tennis in the second set and also in the first set. I feel like I played a bad game throughout the match and that made it very difficult in the third set, so I’m happy to make it through the straights. “
The runner-up of the US Open 2020 will next meet the surprise quarter-finalist Lloyd Harris from South Africa, a 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 6-1, 6-3 winner on Monday afternoon over the high-turnover American Reilly Opelka.
In other men’s matches of the day, world number 1 Serb Novak Djokovic defeated the 99th American teenager Jenson Brooksby with 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2, making it the 12th time in the quarter-finals the US Open made 16 appearances.
Despite losing a set, as he’d tried to do in his previous games, Djokovic stayed perfect in his quest for a calendar grand slam in men’s tennis for the first time since Australian legend Rod Laver in 1969.
It took the 34-year-old Serb two hours and 58 minutes of play time on the center court of the Arthur Ashe Stadium to reach the quarter-finals, where he will face sixth seeded Italian Matteo Berrettini.
This is the fourth time Djokovic and Berrettini have met. They last met in the Wimbledon final last year, which the Serbian won in four sets.
Brooksby, the youngest American to make the tournament’s fourth round since 20-year-old Andy Roddick in 2002, had his moment of fame when he took the first set in just 29 minutes.
But it only took a few seconds for Djokovic to change gear and bring his opponent 2-0 up in the second set.
The second set was marked by long rallies, but number 1 in the world. 1 held on to level the game.
From then on, the Serb remained in control to take his 25th consecutive match win in majors and advance to the quarter-finals this year.
“I think the dynamics changed in the middle of the second set, we played a couple of very long games. I lost my serve, but I regrouped to pause the next game and after that I started to hit cleaner and hit the field, ”said Djokovic.
“Whenever I needed a serve, I found my serve, I hit my points well, but all in all it was a very physical fight, a lot of exhausting rallies. Thanks to him for his performance tonight. It was fantastic.”
