Alexander Zverev has been fighting his way back from an injury and it seems that he got back to winning way at the ATP 500 event in Dubai.
Zverev, who last competed at the Dubai Championships in 2015 when he lost as a wild card in the first round, defeated already three opponents at the tournament and booked his semifinal spot. For the tall German it's the first time in a season that he won three consecutive matches and he was really happy about it after the match.
“It’s been a very difficult time for me over, I would say, the last nine months. I haven’t played tennis at all for such a long period for the first time in my life. It definitely shows that the hard work is paying off and I’m extremely happy with my progress and how I’m playing right now. I’m happy to be in my first semi-final since the injury. Hopefully it won’t be my last and hopefully there’s much more to come here.”
In the tenth game of the second set, it seemed that a two-set win was slipping from the German's hands as he faced three break points, but he was able to win five consecutive points and finish the match. Talking about the moment, he said:
“In those moments, you’ve got to go back to the basics. You’ve got to play each point by itself, you’ve got to remember what you can control. That is always your serve, that’s the only shot in tennis you can control purely by yourself. It obviously helps that I hit five first-serves in a row and then the match was over.”
Up next, the German will face the second-seeded Andrey Rublev in a meeting of two players, who know how it feels to win big titles. Ahead of their sixth meeting, in which he will attempt to beat Zverev for the first time, Rublev said:
“I need to play good tennis, to play aggressive. He’s a top player, he was winning so many great titles and beating all the top players, so he knows how to play tennis and he knows how to play against me.”
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