Alexander Zverev faces his first Grand Slam quarter-final at the French Open in Paris. For the first time in the course of the tournament, the 21-year-old is not favored against the Austrian Dominic Thiem.
Neither Alexander Zverev nor Dominic Thiem followed the international soccer match between Germany and Austria live. For different reasons. While marathon man Zverev did not want to regenerate, Thiem searched unsuccessfully for a TV broadcast. Meanwhile the classic on the green lawn is history, on Tuesday the two mates will play their own version of the neighbourhood duel in the quarter-finals of the French Open on the red sand.
“We get on well together. I’m looking forward to playing a friend on one of the greatest tennis stages in the world,” said Zverev, who, after three successful five-set thrillers in a row, is about to make his debut in the last eight of a Grand Slam tournament: “Dominic plays awesome tennis here”. The anticipation is also great at Thiem. “This is the match many people, especially in Germany and Austria, were hoping for,” he said.
Zverev (21) and his three year older opponent belong to the same group of up-and-coming young professionals. The ATP tour itself has long celebrated them as the “NextGen”, the next generation to end the ten-year reign of the “Big Four” Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray one day. Neither of them has yet won a Grand Slam title. Yet the future has long since become the present.
Zverev and Thiem, currently number three and number eight in the world rankings, have been among the absolute elite for some time – especially on clay. Zverev won two of his three Masters titles in Rome and most recently in Madrid on the red ashes. Thiem has reached the semi-finals of the French Open twice in a row and is also the only player who has beaten Rafael Nadal on his favourite surface in the last two years – and twice.
Zverev and Thiem played a total of six duels on the tour. The German could only win two of them, among them however the last meeting in the semi-final of Madrid at the beginning of May. In Roland Garros, however, he’s more of an outsider. While the man from Hamburg had left much strength in the previous rounds, Thiem made a particularly strong impression in the round of 16 against Kei Nishikori from Japan.
Nevertheless, Zverev does not want to know anything about a physical disadvantage. After all, he has now sufficiently proven his fitness in Paris. Mentally, the whole thing is no problem anyway: “I’m in the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam. He who is mentally exhausted there is something wrong with him,” he said and even allowed himself a small declaration of war. When asked how the duel between Germany and Austria would end this time, he replied with a grin: “At least not like football.