5] D. Thiem b. [7] A. Zverev 3-6 6-4 7-6(3) 7-6(3) (from Melbourne, Vanni Gibertini)
Despite a perfect start with a monster performance on his serve during the first set, Alexander Zverev could not sustain the heavy-hitting rallies imposed by Dominic Thiem and had to forego his dream to reach his first Major final. In the second men’s semifinal on Thursday night in Melbourne, Zverev allowed the two-time Roland Garros runner up Dominic Thiem to regain control of the game and could not take advantage of the chances he had during the match, especially two set points in the third set, and ended up losing two fatal tie-breaks to concede defeat.
Zverev ended the match with a better balance between winners and unforced errors (42-33 versus 43-40) and better stats on his serve, but a poor 5 out of 14 on breakpoints was impossible to overcome and ended up costing him the match.
During most of the day matches had taken place inside the Rod Laver Arena under a closed roof, as temperature in Melbourne soared to a sizzling 43 degrees Celsius bringing all matches on the outside courts to a halt. Just before the beginning of the semifinal the roof had been opened just enough to consider the match outdoor, but leaving only a small gap between the two sections of the roof cover so that they could be quickly closed again in case of rain.
In fact, before Alexander Zverev could serve out the fourth game of the set for 2-2 the first raindrops started falling on Melbourne park turning this second semifinal into an indoor match. Before the short rain interruption, the two players had traded breaks in the first two games of the match and while Thiem was dictating the rallies, Zverev was harvesting easy points with his serve.
With an outstanding 92 percent of first serves, Alexander Zverev closed out the first set in 40 minutes, but that performance was hard to sustain for a long period of time, and when it was possible for Thiem to get into more rallies his grip on the match started to get tighter. Nonetheless, Zverev managed to level the score at 3-3 recovering an early break, but failed to take the lead allowing Thiem to fight the match on his favourite battleground of violent rallies from far behind the baseline. Without enough free points from his serve, Zverev could not counter the Austrian’s firepower and conceded the second set, not before producing an eye-popping “counter-smash” that will surely make the highlights of every sports news program in the world.
After the first game of the third set, play had to be suspended for almost 10 minutes due to some lights going off behind the players, but as the match resumed Zverev continued to lack the ability to serve as effectively as he did in the first set, mainly because Thiem had found the perfect returning position to contrast both his first and his second serves. But a bad service game at 2-3 prevented the Austrian to take a decisive lead in the set and put him in a dangerous position when he was forced to save two set points at 4-5. After brilliantly escaping that situation, Thiem came back very strong to dominate the subsequent tie-break by 7 points to 3 and take a 2-sets-to-1 lead.
Servers dominated the fourth set, as no player had to face even a single breakpoint and only once the returner managed to get to “40”. Another tie-break was therefore inevitable: Thiem took an early 3-0 lead, Zverev won back two minibreaks for a 3-2 but then squandered the chance to equalize with a terrible smash shot almost into the backboard. That was the last chance for Zverev to claw back into the match: after that point, the n.7 seed fired to lethal forehands to advance to three match points and clinched the victory with a scholastic forehand volley.
