Alexander Zverev has reached the round of sixteen of the 1000cc Masters in Shanghai for the third time thanks to a highly concentrated performance. The fifth in the world rankings ended the impressive winning streak of the Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili, who won the tournament in Beijing last weekend, at 7:5, 6:4.
After almost 1:32 hours Zverev converted his first match point in the premiere duel with Basilashvili. “I knew I had to play my best tennis to beat him. My performance was relatively good”, said Zverev at Sky and was “all in all” very satisfied with his performance.
In the round of the last 16 he now meets the two years younger “teen” Alex de Minaur (19). In the head-to-head with the Australian, Zverev, who was born in Hamburg, is in front with 2-0 successes.
Inspired by the tournament win in Beijing after a final coup against Juan Martin del Potro last Sunday and the first jump into the top 30, Basilashvili also played freely against Zverev. From the very beginning, many intense baseline duels developed on the Centre Court.
Zverev, who failed Malek Jaziri in the round of 16 in Beijing the week before, got off to a better start and broke against Basilashvili in the first game. But the joy didn’t last long, as the world ranked 23rd, previously unbeaten for six games, quickly fought back and equalized to 1:1.
Again and again the man with the full beard and the skull and crossbones tried to nail his opponent Zverev to the backhand. The German Davis Cup player proved to have a lot of nerves when he was able to fend off three break points at 3-4 from his point of view.
Once Zverev’s patience paid off during a long rally, twice his service stood out. Shortly thereafter, the fifth in the world rankings was wide awake when he ran a stop ball from Basilashvili and put him unattainably longline with the backhand in the corner. Good for Zverev: It was the transformed break point to the decisive 6:5.
A little later “Sascha” won the first run with his seventh ace after 51 minutes after winning seven points in a row. Full of self-confidence, he showed his opponent the winning fist. As a result, Zverev, who won the Masters in Madrid and the events in Munich and Washington this year, was extremely dominant and stable.
Basilashvili the strains of the past days were more and more noticeable with increasing playing time. At the beginning of the second set he gave up his serve for the third time in total and was quickly trailing 1:2. Zverev didn’t want to miss this chance any more and loosely rewound his program.
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