Former Champion Zverev Fights Through Montreal Opener

  • Posted: Aug 07, 2019

Former Champion Zverev Fights Through Montreal Opener

German looking for second title of 2019

Alexander Zverev finished with the trophy at the Coupe Rogers in Montreal two years ago, beating Roger Federer to ensure the Swiss would have to wait at least another two years to win his first Montreal title.

It wasn’t as pretty as his 2017 title run, but the third-seeded German fought like a champion again on Tuesday to screech out a win against Brit Cameron Norrie 7-6(4), 6-4.

“It was fun going out on this court again. I hope I play many more matches this week here. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m happy with the start,” Zverev said.

The 22-year-old recovered from disappointments within the match to extend his stay at the Canadian ATP Masters 1000 tournament. The World No. 7 led 5-6, 40/0 in the first set but was pushed to deuce and faced a set point. He didn’t panic, however, and later controlled the tie-break.

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The three-time Masters 1000 titlist loosened up in the second, hitting a tweener to win the point of the match and delivering a backhand laser to bring up three match points. Zverev will next meet 13th seed Nikoloz Basilashvili, who beat the German in the Hamburg European Open semi-finals last month en route to his third ATP 500 title. The Georgian beat Jan-Lennard Struff 2-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Brit Kyle Edmund ended the six-match winning streak of Nick Kyrgios 6-3, 6-4. The Aussie won his second ATP 500 title of the year on Sunday at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., notching two Top 10 wins along the way (Tsitsipas, Medvedev).

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“It was obviously very tricky playing Nick… He’s got a very good serve, probably one of the best on Tour. It’s a mini battle in itself, trying to get that back,” Edmund said. “I managed my game well, I served very well today. I thought I just controlled the points with balls in play. It was a really good win for me.”

Edmund will meet eighth seed Daniil Medvedev, who fell to Kyrgios in the Citi Open title match. The top Brit leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 2-0, but they haven’t played since the 2018 Mutua Madrid Open.

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