Alexander Zverev had to beat Hugo Gaston, overcome a massive umpiring error, and just play really solid tennis to secure the 2024 Hamburg Open quarter-final, but he did it.
The German has been playing superb tennis all year long. He's had an amazing year overall, and he's on pace to have the most wins since 2018, when he was one of the best players in the world.
He's certainly been on that level this year, which he highlighted by making the Roland Garros final. That also showed how strong he can be on clay, and he's certainly backing it up this week in Hamburg at his hometown ATP 500 tournament, especially shortly after his knee injury.
Zverev injured his knee during a match against Cameron Norrie at Wimbledon, which proved more complicated than it initially seemed. He confirmed after his first win in Hamburg that he wasn't sure whether he would play his first-round match, but he eventually did, and the same applied to the second round.
Waking up and practicing didn't feel that great to him, but after more treatment, he felt better and opted to play. After that experience, his second match at the event was a proper test, as he had to overcome multiple challenges.
Gaston is a very tricky player to play against because he loves to use many tricks, such as drop shots. Zverev is one of the tallest players on the ATP Tour, so he can struggle with that a little bit despite being very quick for his size.
The Frenchman certainly gave him some trouble in the opening set of the match, as he was able to get himself to set points at 5-4 when his opponent served. That was important because Gaston was down after three games, but he battled back.
Unfortunately, the first set was overshadowed by a massive umpiring error on the fourth set point the French player had. The umpire, Alison Hughes, ruled a clear double bounce as a valid play by Gaston, which proved costly because he won that point and the opening set when he should have lost that point, and it would have been a deuce. And who knows what might have happened after that?
Gaston is no stranger to controversy. He was handed one of the biggest fines in recent memory for multiple offenses of cheating during matches, and as the replay showed, the ball very likely bounced twice, and the Frenchman was very likely aware of that.
Zverev was raging, but he managed to find composure after that as he continued playing well and completely outplayed his opponent in the second set, to the delight of the crowd in Hamburg.
He jumped out to an early lead, after which he simply added on top of it to win the second set 6-2 and force the decider. He was aggressive all day long, but it only worked out in the second set.
The final set opened with an early break for the German player as well. A 2-0 lead with the serve doing all the damage gave very few chances for Gaston to break back.
Still, he had a massive chance in the fourth game of the set, which was the longest of the match, when he had five break points, but couldn't use either of his chances.
Only a couple of games later, the French player was able to find the break, but home hero immediately broke him back. Despite having new balls to serve out the match, Zverev was broken again, but in the 11th game of the 3rd set, he broke his opponent one final time, and he was finally able to serve out the match.
It was a complicated match for Zverev, but he held his nerve after the umpiring error and overcame a very tricky opponent and his push in the third set as well, to win the match 4-6, 6-2, 7-5, and secure the 2024 Hamburg Open quarter-final against Zhizhen Zhang.
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