Alexander Zverev barely won his second-round match at the 2024 Australian Open, but he did much better in his third-round match, surviving a tricky encounter against Alex Michelsen.
The American has a similar story to Ben Shelton's last year story. He's a talented youngster who had some success on the ATP Challenger Tour last year and is hoping to break out in a major way this year.
There were moments in this match where we saw that, but overall, the American was quite overmatched by Zverev, who was the favorite going into this match, which was the last night match at the Rod Laver Arena.
There was a stretch in the second set where Michelsen's baseline play did some damage, and he almost stole the second set. Unfortunately, he lost two crucial rallies by sailing the ball wide, and that was his main struggle.
The propensity to play himself out of matches is what undid him here. Zverev is a patient baseliner who doesn't mind playing long rallies, and that's just not Michelsen's game.
Quite a few times, he'd get overwhelmed and simply lose patience. The best example of that was at the start of the third set, where he completely lost any focus and got broken early to essentially seal the match for Zverev.
Overall, it was a pretty solid impression from Michelsen, who will be dangerous when the Tour moves to the United States, especially the second stretch in late summer. As for Zverev, he certainly prefers this type of match compared to the previous one, which he barely won in five sets.
He's not playing as spectacularly as he did at the United Cup, but he's doing enough to win. We'll see what happens when he runs into a really good player in the coming rounds. The final score was 6-2, 7-6(4), 6-2 for the German.
Alexander Zverev vs Alex Michelsen Match Stats:
| Alexander Zverev | Alex Michelsen | |
| 11 | Aces | 1 |
| 1 | Double Faults | 3 |
| 72% | First Serve % | 65% |
| 79% (46/58) | Points Won After First Serve % | 63% (35/56) |
| 65% (15/23) | Points Won After Second Serve % | 50% (15/30) |
| 50% (5/10) | Break Point Conversion | 100% (1/1) |
| 26 | Winners | 16 |
| 28 | Unforced Errors | 33 |
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