A few days after winning a trophy in Chengdu, Alexader Zverev continued his good run at the 2023 China Open by beating Diego Schwartzman.
It was a win but a tough one for Zverev, who played Diego Schwartzman and nearly lost. Schwartzman has been far from his best for much of this year, managing only 12 wins in 27 matches, which is far from his best.
He did play a solid match here, though, against Zverev, who was expectedly a bit slow to start. He just won in Chengdu, and generally, players do have struggles the week after a trophy.
It was a close match, but much of that had to do with Zverev kind of taking a very long time to play himself into a good rhythm. Schwartzman was up an early break in the opening set but allowed Zverev to battle back and force a tiebreak.
Still, the Argentine won it 7-2 as Zverev missed far too much. He's not a player who spams too many misses, but he certainly did here, and it proved his undoing.
The second set was quite different, as Zverev missed far less. Much of that had to do with him serving better, which put him in a better position to win rallies, and that's what he did. Schwartzman fell off quite a bit compared to the first set, and the score 6-1 reflects that.
The final set was a close one, with chances on both sides. Both played well, but Zverev served a bit better and overall played just a tiny bit better, which is all he needed to break his opponent once and then cruise after that.
The final score was 6-7(2) 6-1 6-4 for the German, who has now five matches in a row and looks very dangerous in these quick conditions.