Boris Becker congratulated his countryman
Alexander Zverev after the World No. 10 won the
Chengdu Open title.
Zverev showed resilience on multiple occasions at the Chengdu Open this week. The German player had a tough battle against his first-round opponent Pavel Kotov before coming back from a set down against Miomir Kecmanovic in the second round.
He achieved his first and only straight-sets victory of the tournament in the semi-finals where he ousted World No. 19 Grigor Dimitrov, extending his head-to-head lead against the Bulgarian player to 7-1.
Zverev congratulated by Becker
In what was his 32nd final on the
ATP Tour, Zverev clashed with Roman Safiullin, who was making his debut in an ATP final. The two 26-year-olds battled it out across three sets, with the Russian winning the first set on a tiebreak.
However, the former World No. 2 has experience in coming back during a match, having defeated Jannik Sinner at the US Open earlier this month in a grueling five-set thriller that lasted over four and a half hours. Therefore, he was able to level the match by winning the tiebreak in the second set before taking the final set 6-3.
Following his victory at the ATP 250 event, former World No. 1 Becker, who has six Grand Slam titles to his name, congratulated his compatriot on social media.
The 55-year-old shared a photo of Zverev's victory along with the caption "Glückwunsch Sascha," which translates to "Congratulations Sascha," in English, with Sascha being a nickname for Alexander.
Zverev is now preparing to compete at the China Open in Beijing, where the field is stacked with Top 10 and Top 20-ranked players. He will be the eighth seed at the ATP 500 tournament and will hope to continue his success on the Asian Swing with a first-round match against Diego Schwartzman.