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Alexander Zverev after his victory
Photo: Julian Finney / Getty Images
Alexander Zverev has reached the quarterfinals for the third time at the Australian Open.
The Olympic tennis champion won on Monday in Melbourne after a great fight against the Briton Cameron Norrie with 7:5, 3:6, 6:3, 4:6, 7:6 (10:3) and can thus move on from the first Grand Dreaming of the Slam title of his career.
Zverev converted his first match point after 4:05 hours.
In the fight for the semi-finals, Zverev will now face Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz from Spain or the Serbian Miomir Kecmanović on Wednesday.
Before the game, Zverev had an impeccable record of four wins and 8-0 sets against Norrie, and he also got into the game well on Monday and decisively broke the world number 22 in the first set to 6-5.
After a drop in performance in the second set, the momentum in the game fluctuated back and forth.
Zverev is still having a hard time in Australia
In the match tiebreak of the fifth set, Zverev showed himself to have more staying power and used his first match point to win and reach the third quarter-final in Melbourne in his career.
The game against Norrie was briefly interrupted by a spectator protest in the middle of the third set.
A woman had thrown leaflets onto the pitch from the stands behind Zverev.
The woman apparently wanted to use her action to draw attention to the Middle East conflict; the pieces of paper said “Free Palestine.”
After a few minutes the encounter could be continued.
Zverev got into the tournament in Melbourne with difficulty; in the second round he was already on the verge of elimination against the Slovakian qualifier Lukas Klein and needed 4:30 hours to win.
As sixth in the world rankings, the Hamburger, who traveled to Australia with strong previous performances, was actually one of the extended favorites - but he has to improve significantly to have a chance of winning the title.
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