2024 Miami Open Men's Semi-Final PREVIEW as Alcaraz conqueror Grigor DIMITROV takes on Alexander ZVEREV

The second semi-final at the 2024 Miami Open will happen late on Friday night with Grigor Dimitrov set to face Alexander Zverev to face the victor of Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev who will already have a winner by the time this match begins.

Our preview looks at both player's routes to the semi-finals, head to head as well as a prediction as the Miami Open heads towards its conclusion.

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Route to the Semi-Final - Zverev fails to drop a set in superb run

Alexander Zverev has been in superb form throughout this tournament and has barely put a foot wrong. He opened up with victory over Felix Auger-Aliassime before taking down Christopher Eubanks in the third round.

But perhaps his most impressive wins came in the Last 16 and Quarter-Final as he took down two perennial winners based off stats on the Masters 1000 series in Karen Khachanov (in particular) who seems to find his best in the bigger events as well as the anomaly himself, Fabian Marozsan who at one point held a better win ratio than Djokovic and Nadal in these tournaments. In particular he dumped out Carlos Alcaraz in Rome last year, but built on that so-called legend this week albeit being defeated by Zverev in the Quarter-Finals fairly comfortably.

After losing to Carlos Alcaraz fairly comfortably last week at the Indian Wells Open, Zverev won't be facing him in the semi-finals despite likely expecting to when he left the court early on Thursday night.

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Route to the semi-final - Devastating Dimitrov continues incredible resurgence

That is because it is Grigor Dimitrov who now stands in the way for the German. After a stunning run which saw him survive in a tie-break in particular against Hubert Hurkacz, he eased past Carlos Alcaraz 6-2, 6-4 with no degree of real fuss as Alcaraz said that playing Dimitrov made him think of himself as a 13-year-old.

Dimitrov has been having a real resurgence in the past 12 months and even in the last six after reaching the final of the Paris Masters, the only stain on his coffee book so to speak is a loss to an inspired Nuno Borges at the Australian Open. He reached back-to-back finals as the season started and ended with Brisbane gleaming a title and has only lost to inspired names such as Ugo Humbert and Daniil Medvedev in other tournaments, two of the best on paper this season.

So this run in reality has been coming for Dimitrov who at the younger end is part of a group of players including Adrian Mannarino and even Novak Djokovic who are still finding their best well into their 30's. Albeit his next task against Zverev will be an uphill task for a very simple reason.

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Baffling Head to Head Record

Head to Head wise, Dimitrov has not beaten him in 10 years and he has lost the last seven. His last win came in Basel in 2014 with Zverev dominating from there mainly in the last year alone with four wins in 2023. Asked about this, Dimitrov paid no mind to the poor record.

“It’s a number man. It is how it is. Just another opponent for me right now. I wanna first see what I did today in order to prepare for the next one. That’s my goal right now. I don’t want to overthink to much. I don’t want to think ‘Oh god I’ve played him so many times.’ It’s just another match. I’m so grateful to be out here in the semifinals. The furthest I’ve gone in this event. It brings me a lot of joy, honestly," said Dimitrov.

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