Roared on by the fans, defending champion Alexander Zverev on Thursday battled through to the quarter-finals of the Hamburg Open with a 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 victory over France’s Hugo Gaston.
Zverev is recovering from a knee injury he suffered at Wimbledon, but still covered the court as Gaston played a string of drop shots. Gaston took the first set after a 30-ball rally, which Zverev was convinced should have been halted for a double bounce.
Zverev bounced back to break in the next game on his way to taking the second set.
Photo: AP
The decider included five breaks of serve, but Zverev took the last to lead 6-5 before holding serve to 15 to seal victory.
In the quarter-finals the German is to face Chinese eighth seed Zhang Zhizhen, who beat Flavio Cobolli 6-1, 7-6 (7/5).
French fifth seed Arthur Fils also advanced, beating Serbia’s Laslo Djere, last year’s losing finalist, 7-6 (7/3), 6-2.
Fils, who made the semi-finals in Hamburg a year ago, reached his sixth ATP Tour quarter-final this season.
“When I’m practicing super hard like I’m doing, of course I am able to show a great level and great fitness for a few hours,” Fils said. “If a guy wants to beat me, it has to be tough. I am not going to let the match go.”
Fils is to face second seed Holger Rune, who beat Marco Trungelliti 6-4, 6-3 in 80 minutes.
The Dane said he had tried to turn his round-of-16 straight sets loss to Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon into motivation.
“It’s been very intense since Wimbledon. I only had one day off, actually,” Rune said. “I was like: ‘I don’t want to rest, I want to go straight back to practice,’ because I was very disappointed. I went straight back to work on the things that needed to be done and now I have the chance to train those things in matches.”
HALL OF FAME OPEN
AFP, NEW YORK
Reilly Opelka on Thursday hammered 27 aces in a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Mackenzie McDonald to book a semi-final meeting with Alex Michelsen at the Hall of Fame Open in Newport, Rhode Island.
Opelka, playing on a wild card in his first tournament in almost two years, became the lowest-ranked player to reach a semi-final in the ATP Tour era, having fallen to 1,188th in the world as he recovered from hip and wrist operations.
“There is a bit of a good element to that,” said Opelka, who shocked top seed and defending champion Adrian Mannarino in the previous round.
“Let’s just call it like it is, these guys don’t want to lose to a guy that hasn’t played in two years,” he said. “I’m playing with house money. It allows me to be a little bit more free and there’s extra nerves on the other side of the net.”
However, Opelka, who last played in Washington in 2022 when he was ranked 17th in the world, acknowledged he has some rust to shake off before a hoped-for appearance at the US Open next month.
“I was serving for it up 40-love and threw in two double faults. So that was a little bit out of character, but that’s why I’m here. I’m here to try to shake off some of that rust — better I think to do it here and get it out of the way as opposed to maybe [at the] US Open,” he said.
Third seed Michelsen, 19, is into the semi-finals for the second straight year thanks to a 6-4, 6-4 victory over fellow American Aleksandar Kovacevic.
PALERMO LADIES OPEN
Staff writer
Taiwan’s Latisha Chan and Zhang Shuai of China on Thursday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the Palermo Ladies Open in Italy by defeating third seeds Camilla Rosatello of Italy and Kimberley Zimmermann of Belgium 6-0, 7-5 in the quarter-finals.
The unseeded duo were to face top seeds Alexandra Panova and Yana Sizikova in the semi-finals yesterday after the Russians ousted Italians Anastasia Abbagnato and Giorgia Pedone 6-2, 6-4 in their quarter-final.
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