Alexander Zverev continued his march on home soil at the 2023 Hamburg Open, by overcoming talented Luca Van Assche in straight sets.
Zverev grew up in Hamburg, practically on these very courts, and every time he gets a chance to return to his home event is a delight for him. He was supposed to play at the event last year, his first after the gruesome Roland Garros injury, but it didn't work out as his recovery dragged out.
He's back this year and he's playing some amazing tennis scoring a few good wins before this match. This win sends him into the semi-final as he hopes to go all the way. He'll be in a good position if he continues to play the way he played so far.
Van Assche is a very talented player and he played a fairly decent event so far but couldn't quite get it done. The first set was pretty flawless from Zverev who used his serve to create a lot of chances for him, chances he would use easily.
The German dropped only a handful of points on his serve never facing a break point while he created three on the serve of his opponent and converted one of them. Zverev seems very motivated on the court, totally unbothered by the most recent set of allegations against him.
He denied any kind of abuse towards his former partner and declared that he won't speak on the matter anymore. He's speaking quite clearly with his tennis, even though he had a shaky start to the second set. Van Assche took a 3-0 lead but allowed Zverev to battle back into the match and make it 4-4.
He then used that momentum to turn around the match completely finishing it off in two sets. The final score was 6-3 6-4 as he moves on to the semi-final to face either Casper Ruud or Arthur Fils.