Unexpected Health Issue Puts Zverev’s Cincinnati Match Against Alcaraz in Question

Saturday, 16 August 2025 at 17:30

byErik Virostko

Alexander Zverev will play against Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals of the 2025 Cincinnati Open, but his performance might be influenced by an unexpected health issue.

The Cincinnati Open semi-finals will be almost as good as it can get. The three highest-ranked players on the ATP Tour all made it to the semi-final stage in Cincinnati, and joining them is the World No. 136 player, Terence Atmane, who has been the story of the tournament.

Jannik Sinner will be the one who will take on Atmane, with Zverev having to take on Alcaraz. It will be the blockbuster semi-final, but the German player likely won't arrive in his peak physical condition.

In their quarter-final matches, the stories were much different. Alcaraz fought Andrey Rublev in three challenging sets, ultimately winning 6-3, 4-6, 7-5. Zverev, on the other hand, breezed past Ben Shelton, winning 6-2, 6-2 to end the American's nine-match winning streak.

Seeing these results, one could assume that Zverev might even be the favorite to beat the second seed, but that's not the full picture. The 28-year-old will have to deal with a physical setback, as he started feeling unwell during the second set of his match against Shelton.

"Right now, I’m not feeling too great. We’ll see. I have a day to get fresh and to hopefully feel 100% again. I’m not sure what happened, I came out today and probably felt the best I did in a few months. I was feeling the ball incredibly well from both sides."

"But I started feeling not so great at the end of the opening set, and things got progressively worse. But I’m in the semi-finals and I’ll do everything I can to be 100 per cent tomorrow."

Zverev faces a mammoth task on the quest to win the Cincinnati Open

Zverev knows what it feels like to lift the title in Cincinnati. He won the 2021 edition of the tournament, beating the likes of Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Casper Ruud on his way to the title.

But if he wants to win this year, he might need to pull off a miracle. He has already eliminated Shelton, who was the best player in the past couple of weeks, and now, he will face the World No. 2 player and the winner of two of the last five Grand Slams.

If Zverev gets past that hurdle, he might need to take on the World No. 1 player and the winner of three of the last five majors. Slowly but surely, the dominance of Alcaraz and Sinner is starting to look very similar to the dominance of the Big Three, when getting past Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer to win the title seemed impossible.