Alexander Zverev was surprised by the level of tennis displayed by his fourth-round opponent, Bernabe Zapata Miralles, before prevailing.
Zapata Miralles was competing in his second Roland Garros main draw. Last year, he came through qualifying and lost his opening match to compatriot Carlos Alcaraz.
Because of his low ranking, Zapata Miralles navigated the qualifying rounds again, but this time, he punched above his weight by securing a spot in the second week of the clay major with three main draw wins.
Two of those were upsets over the American pair of Taylor Fritz and John Isner, which earned him a date against the World No. 3 Zverev. The German entered the contest after his thrilling five-set win over Sebastian Baez in the second round, in which he saved a match point and a straight-sets win over Brandon Nakashima.
Despite the gulf in rankings and tennis accomplishments, Zapata Miralles showed his stoicism by pushing Zverev all the way. In the end, the third seed managed to eke out a tight straight-sets win that required three hours.
After the match, Zverev praised his vanquished opponent, who was in unchartered territory at a Grand Slam but still competed very well and was unfortunate not to win that second set when he led 4-2.
"You can see how hard-working of a guy he is and how great of a guy he is, I think everybody hopes he is going to have more weeks like this and continue playing the same way because he can be a very good player, and hopefully we can see him on this court more often."
"He was driving me nuts, to be honest. He’s one of the fastest guys on Tour, I could barely hit a winner against him. We played three sets but we played close to three hours. He’s playing incredible tennis, so if he continues playing like this I don’t see why his ranking is not going to go up even more."
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