London, England
The youngest player in the eight man field at the ATP Finals in London is into the Final Four. Alexander Zverev fired 18 aces to defeat John Isner 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 in the he their final Round-Robin singles matches of the tournament.
The 21-year old Zverev with two wins and just two sets lost advanced into the Semi-Finals out of the Guga Kuerten Group. Marin Cilic, who will play his final Round-Robin match on Friday night can not catch Zverev even if he defeats Novak Djokovic tonight as he has already lost three sets. Isner has been eliminated losing all three contests.
Zverev was firing on all cylinders in the match hitting 25 winners and making just 10 unforced errors. He out-aced his American opponent by eight, something you don’t see very often. He also won 75-percent of his points on first serve and he lost just one of 11 points at the net in the match.
“I don’t think anybody matches up well against John, to be honest,” said Zverev. ” It’s always one or two points that decide the match. We have had so many tight matches. This is only the second time that has gone to two sets.”
The two players went back and forth in the opening set, both players nearly untouchable on serve. Through the first ten games of the match each player combined for 13 aces and lost just a total of 11 points on serve.
Isner’s best chance to make something happen came at 6-5 when he hit a huge crosscourt forehand for a winner setting up set point. But then Zverev’s ninth ace of the match followed by two more big serves sent the first set into a tiebreak.
At 5-5 Isner tried to sneak into the net after returning a Zverev second serve but the young German came up with a forehand shot that the big 6’10 American could not handle. Shortly thereafter, Isner then fired a forehand into the net and the set belonged to Zverev.
In the second, the 6’6 Zverev continued his hot serving. On two separate occasions he fired three straight aces to capture service games. He got the only break of the set when he was up 4-3. A shank forehand from the 33-year old and then a good second serve return low to Isner’s backhand side gave him a chance to close out the match. Moments later he did. The match ending on an Isner backhand return which sailed long.
Zverev finished second in Group B behind Novak Djokovic. He will face Roger Federer in the first of Saturday’s Semi-Finals at 2pm local time.
“It’s obviously great getting to the semifinals,” said Zverev. “But the tournament isn’t over. I am in the semifinals. There’s only good opponents left. There’s only the best in the world. I’m playing Roger tomorrow, which is going to be a very difficult but hopefully very nice match. We’ll see how far I can go.”
As for Isner’s take on the match: “I think he was pretty dialed in on his serve, which was of course very important. A lot of times with me it comes down to a few points here or there. I had the one breakpoint, and he aced me. That’s a credit to him. That’s why he’s ranked what he’s ranked, 4 or 5 in the world. He was better.
@Sportshorn
