Sascha Zverev impresses for winning a rather tricky match in his opener in London against Marin Cilic.
The match
Sascha started in the worst possible way (0-3) before saving also a couple of break points to avoid a more severe deficit (0-4 and 1-5). The German looked tense and even his coach, Ivan Lendl, looked completely unimpressed by his performance. However, eventually it was Cilic to blink when he had to serve out the set when leading 5-3 to lose his service game at 15. (5-4). Then Sascha made it even (5-5) to win the opener at the tiebreak (7-6).
The German had to recover from a break down also in the second set after he dropped his serve in the 7th game (3-4). However, this time he managed to get that break back immediately (4-4). Zverev was once again to strong in the following breaker to finally win the match 7-6 (5) 7-6 (1). The match ended after 2 hours and 6 minutes.
I wanted to fight back
After the match, Sacha commented
“That first set was key because against Marin you never want to fall behind. He’s such a hard-hitting, aggressive player, when he gets confidence it is tough to play against him. wanted to fight back from every score, he was up a break in both sets.
I knew it was a very important match, you don’t want to start the group stage with a losing record. it was very important to get the win.
I’m happy with how I played and happy to build from here.”
Sascha is now leading the Group Gustavo Kuerten with Novak Djokovic (that has a better games ratio.
Next vs. Djokovic
Sascha will face Novak Djokovic in his 2nd match. The head to head is 1-all, but Djokovic has recently dismantled the German in the Shanghai semifinal 6-2 6-1.
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SOLUTION FOUND
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