Alexander Zverev battled past Gilles Simon 6-3 6-7 (6-8) 7-6 (7-1) at the Open de Nice Cote d’Azur to reach his third semifinal this season after fending off two match points. Zverev saved eight of the ten break points he faced. In his previous two semifinals this year Zverev lost to Paul-Henri Mathieu in Montpellier and to Dominic Thiem in Munich.
Zverev got the chance to wrap up the match when he led 6-4 in the tie-break of the second set, but Simon fought back to force the match to the decider. Simon earned two match points as Zverev was serving at 5-6 15-40 but the young German bounced back to cruise through to a 7-1 in the decider. Zverev had already beaten Simon twice earlier this year at Rotterdam and Indian Wells.
Zverev set up a semifinal against Joao Sousa, who edged past Kevin Anderson 7-5 7-5 in one hour and 37 minutes. The Portuguese player fended off all the six break points he faced.
Anderson and Sousa went on serve until the 12th game when the Portuguese player got the break. Sousa saved four break points in the third game of the second set. Anderson fended off two chances in the next game. The serve went on serve until the 12th game when Sousa rallied from 0-40 down to get the decisive break to win the second set 7-5.
Dominic Thiem beat Andreas Seppi 6-3 6-2 in one hour and 23 minutes. Thiem won two consecutive points from 30-30 on Seppi’s serve to break serve in the second game of the opening set. The Austrian player did not face any break points in the first set and held his service game to 15 to close out the first set.
The second set went on serve until Seppi was leading 3-2 without breaks of serve. Thiem won four consecutive games with two breaks of serve in the seventh and ninth games to win the second set 6-4
Adrian Mannarino bounced back from one set down to beat Guido Pella 5-7 7-6 (7-4) 6-1.
