Alexander Zverev battles past Jannik Sinner for US Open quarterfinal

Alexander Zverev played a below-average match for his standards but was still able to overcome Jannik Sinner in straight sets 6-4 6-4 7-6(7).

Alexander Zverev stepped out to play Jannik Sinner for a place in the quarterfinal of the US Open. They played once before at a Grand Slam and Sinner was able to win that match however here it was mostly Zverev who proved better. Early on it was a rather balanced and well-contested match. Both players played well but it was Zverev who played key rallies on return better.

He broke Sinner and held it to capture the first set with 6-4. He played only slightly better than Sinner albeit it was far from Zverev's best. He was too passive at times which continued in the 2nd set as well. The 2nd set was not good by either player. Both made numerous mistakes especially Sinner who had several horrendous mistakes in key rallies.

The key moments happened late in the set where Zverev took a break to set himself up to serve for the set at 5-4. Sinner carved out two break points at 40-15 lead on Zverev's serve but failed to convert either giving away the set. The 3rd set started off well for Zverev who once again took an early lead breaking Sinner at 1-1. After that Zverev held his serve a few games before Sinner played a very strong game to pull it back.

Sinner had two set points at 6-5 to him on Zvevere's serve but once again failed to convert either of those. We ended up in the tiebreak where Sinner had a 4-1 lead looking in a good position to send the match into a 4th set. Zverev would pull it back to 4-4 and eventually win the tiebreak with 9-7 saving two 3 set points in the process.

A good win for Zverev who avoided playing 4 sets narrowly against Sinner who simply did not have it in key moments. His epic 5-set match with Monfils probably did not help him physically.