ATP: Alexander Zverev in Madrid with revenge against John Isner

Alexander Zverev is playing for his next ATP Masters 1000 semi-final in Madrid today (not before 9:30pm, live on SKY and in our live ticker). His opponent is the man he lost to in miami in the final: John Isner.

John Isner and Pablo Cuevas had already decided one thing before the late round of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid: The winner of the match would meet Alexander Zverev, who in any case has a desire for revenge. Germany’s number one lost to Cuevas in 2017 and to Isner in the final of the Masters event in Miami. After three hard tiebreaks on Thursday evening, the American successfully applied for a re-match with Zverev.

In his second match, Zverev did not give a set either: While he had slight problems against Evgeny Donskoy, at least in the second set, Zverev, who was born in Hamburg, showed himself to be in excellent shape, clearly beating Leonardo Mayer 6-4 and 6-2 according to Vagen calculations, Alexander Zverev is now on the brink of ten set wins in a row, and since yesterday new record holder Rafael Nadal is only 40 sets short. On the other hand: his series is not over yet.

The final in Miami, however, will be a little sluggish for Zverev. Because actually the German was the better player in this duel. But then, as so often – and also in the match against Cuevas – Isner saved himself another time with his serve um´s 32 Aces on Ash, which corresponds to the Isner´schen blueprint. On the other hand, the fact that Cuevas, not known as the monster slayer, gets his 16 shows the vulnerability of the man who studied at the University of Georgia for four years.

Both players will be asleep in any case: The match is scheduled to be the last of the day on the Manolo Santana court, not before 9:30 pm (live on SKY and in our live ticker) Zverev and Isner will play their fifth duel in total. Zverev had already stood on the court until after midnight during his match against Donskoy, no problem for the Hamburg native.

When Isner and Zverev meet, it is only under very special auspices: all four encounters so far have taken place within the framework of ATP Masters 1000 tournaments. A win against the US player gave Alexander Zverev a special boost: in the semi-final in Rome 2017, after which the 21-year-old did not give Novak Djokovic a chance in the final.

Here are the matches between Alexander Zverev and John Isner

The winner can look forward to a quite solvable task in the semi-finals: either Denis Shapovalov, who won the purely Canadian match against Milos Raonic. Or Kyle Edmund, who defeated Novak Djokovic and David Goffin in Madrid in 2018. Alexander Zverev would be the clear favourite against both players.

Here the single tableau in Madrid