Die-hard Nikoloz Basilashvili survives Zverev in the semifinal in Hamburg

Nikoloz Basilashvili survives Alexander Zverev 6-4 4-6 7-6⁵ in the semifinal in Hamburg on Saturday after conquering a huge battle. Basilashvili will face off with Andrey Rublev in the final.

Score, report, and key facts

1^st set.

Both players managed to hold their serve for the entire set. The only difference was just 1 break that Basilashvili conquered in the 10^th game (6-4).

2^nd set.

Alexander conquered the set after recovering from 1 break down. In fact, after dropping his serve in the 4^th (1-3) game, Zverev broke back in the 5^th (2-3) and in the 9^th (5-4) game before winning the set 6-4.

3^rd set.

Basilashvili was in a great position at the beginning of the set to break Zverev in the 2^nd game (2-0) before consolidating his break and lead 3-0. Nevertheless, the set was not over yet and there was more work to do for the Georgean to win the set as Zverev succeeded in breaking back in the 5^th (2-3) and in the 7^th (4-3) game. Basilashvili kept his focus before winning the set at the tiebreak at 5.

However also Zverev won 5 consecutive games from 0-3 to 5-3

At the end of the match, Nikoloz scored 123 points vs. Zverev’s 121 points.

Nikoloz didn’t lose the focus when converting 50% of the break points that he procured (4/8). On the other side, Alexander was not so effective in converting his break points as he converted only 20% of his break points (4/20). That was one of the key issues for his defeat.

After this match, the head to head between Basilashvili and Zverev is 1-2 for Alexander.

Highlights Nikoloz Basilashvili vs. Alexander Zverev German Tennis Championships – Hamburg

Basilashvili’s Interview

After the match, Nikoloz commented “I don’t think I was calm. I was really emotional inside. Maybe I didn’t show that much.

I was serving really, really bad in the third set, so that got me very emotional and I got very tight also in the third set. But in general, how I managed to come back from 2/5 in the tie-break was something that I give credit to myself. It doesn’t happen with my tennis that often, so I’m really happy. ”

Next Match: Nikoloz Basilashvili vs. Andrey Rublev – H2H and stats

Basilashvili will square off with Rublev in the final.

This will be the 2^nd time that Nikoloz Basilashvili and Andrey Rublev fight against each other. The head to head is 1-0 for Basilashvili (see full H2H stats), but they have never competed against each other on clay.

The last time that they competed against each other, Basilashvili won 6-3 6-4 in the 2^nd round in Doha back in January 2019.