Zverev and Tsitsipas advance to the semi-finals of the French Open

Alexander Zverev reached the semi-finals of the Grand Slam for the first time at the French Open in Paris. He won Tuesday’s quarter-final against Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, despite a mixed performance with 6:4.6:1.6:1 in Friday’s semi-final, the 24-year-old meets Stefanos Tsitsipas, and the Greek beat Russia’s Daniil Medvedev 6: 3.7:6(3), 7:5.

Medvedev has previously won his first match at Roland Garros, having always lost in the first round in his previous four matches. But then he clearly lost to Tsitsipas. The 25-year-old world number two is still 6:2 head-to-head. Of course, 22-year-old Tsitsipas is 5-2 ahead of Zverev. On clay, they had only one encounter on the Tour, in 2019 in Madrid with Tsitsipas winning in three sets.

Zverev was a major semi-finalist at the 2020 Australian Open and US Open, losing the final in New York to Dominic Thiem of Lower Austria in five sets. “It’s good to be in the semi-finals, but I hope we can do more,” Zverev said after the match. At first he found it very difficult. The 24-year-old couldn’t find a rhythm at the moment and gave up his serve three times in the first sentence. But his opponent behaved incorrectly.

With the first round win in the back, things went much better in Zverev. He’s moved better now and his sending didn’t cause too many problems either. Davidovich Fokina, on the other hand, looked drenched in pressure in his first Grand Slam quarter-final. Zverev now controlled everything and also broke twice as fast in the third set. Unstoppable though and perfect progression after only 1:36 hours.