Defending champion Alexander Zverev has finally secured the last semi-final spot at the ATP Finals which was held on Friday. He secured the spot after eliminating Rafael Nadal in the process.
Alexander Zverev Secured Last Semi-final Spot
Zverev defeated already eliminated Daniil Medvedev 6-4, 7-6 (4) at the O2 Arena in order to finish second behind Stefanos Tsitsipas in the group along with this he also set up a semi-final against Dominic Thiem.
Previously, Nadal stayed in contention by rallying in order to beat Tsitsipas 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-5 for his round-robin stage second win.
But at the same time Zverev’s win left him, Nadal, as well as Tsitispas with matching 2-1 records with the top-ranked Spaniard excluded on the basis of the tiebreaker rules of the tournament.
This in other term means that only one of tennis’ Big Three made the semi-finals as Novak Djokovic was then further also eliminated on Thursday. Tsitsipas is going to face six-time champion Roger Federer in the first semi-final that was held on Saturday.
On the other hand, Medvedev (0-3) had only pride in order to play for against Zverev as well as he was broken in the opening game. The Russian mainly held his own after that but was not able to force a single break point as well as double-faulted in order to go 5-3 down in the second-set tiebreaker.
Zverev then further changed his first match point with an ace.
“The young guys have been playing much better tennis than they were maybe last year,” Zverev said. He further added, “Nobody expected (Nadal) to be out from our group. Our group was very, very difficult, and for me and Stefanos to qualify, I don’t think a lot of people would have picked (that).”
At the same time, the seventh-ranked German had also major leap forward in winning previous year’s tournament, defeating Federer in the semi-finals as well as Djokovic in the final. He is now going to come up against Thiem, who awestruck this week by defeating those same two players in the group phase.
On the other hand, Tsitsipas had already secured a semi-final spot by winning his opening two matches but at the same time still pushed Nadal in order to the wire in a match that carry on approximately three hours.
That effort might possibly cost him against Federer, who required only 1 hour, 13 minutes in order to defeat Novak Djokovic in his final group-stage match that was held on Thursday as well as spent Friday resting up.
“It’s OK, my body feels well currently,” Tsitsipas said. He further added, “I don’t feel pain anywhere. I feel fresh, honestly. After having a long, difficult match like this, I feel like I can go out and play tomorrow the same way. So I don’t have any problem with that.”
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