Alexander Zverev’s first opponent in the individual competition of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid has been determined: On Wednesday (live on SKY and in our live ticker) it will be the Russian Evgeny Donskoy.
Turning back the tennis clock by twelve months, Evgeny Donskoy was in an extraordinary, unique situation: no other player had managed to defeat Roger Federer in the 2017 campaign a year ago. Well, the Swiss had only played four tournaments, but won three of them. Only in Dubai, right at the start, he had to congratulate an opponent on the net: It’s Donskoy.
It had prevailed in the desert state in the third set tie-break. Just like on Tuesday at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid, where Donskoy needed 2:41 hours to win against Stefanos Tsitsipas. The pay? A meeting with Alexander Zverev, the number two of the tournament.
Victories against big players are the exception at Donskoy – otherwise the 27-year-old would not be in 90th place in the ATP world rankings. Mid 60s, that was the optimum for Donskoy in the charts, who beat Florian Mayer in round one of the Australian Open in Melbourne in 2018. At the Davis Cup against Austria in Moscow, however, he lost decisively against Jürgen Melzer.
In Dubai, things went well for the Russian again this year, and a quarter-final was settled in the end. So was Delray Beach before. Against Alexander Zverev, Donskoy will start as a blatant underdog. Also because the German number one has won the only duel in Wimbledon 2017 so far.
Zverev, on the other hand, completed the last three days of the tournament in Munich in a very concentrated and confident manner – and in his matches against Jan-Lennard Struff, Hyeon Chung and Philipp Kohlschreiber he felt on the court for about as long as Donskoy against Tsitsipas.
As number two, Zverev enjoys not only a walk-through in Madrid – but also the most comfortable position imaginable when meeting Rafael Nadal: Alexander Zverev must be the favourite in the lower half of the tableau, but he will not be able to play the Spanish defending champion until the final at the earliest. But first there is the Federer shock.
Here the single tableau in Madrid