Clever, nervous and with irrepressible power: Alexander Zverev has moved into the semifinals of the US Open with a show of power and seems ready for the decisive duels for the title.
The 24-year-old tennis top player from Hamburg won the quarter-finals against South African Lloyd Harris 7: 6 (8: 6), 6: 3, 6: 4 on Wednesday after initial problems and was allowed to continue around a month after Olympic gold hope for his first Grand Slam triumph.
The previous year's finalist took his last hurdle before the possible "dream duel" with world number one Novak Djokovic, who won all three previous majors of the year in Melbourne, Paris and Wimbledon and was the first professional in New York since Rod Laver in 1969 to take the calendar Grand Slam wants to complete.
The quarter-finals of the 34-year-old Serb, a new edition of the Wimbledon final against the Italian Matteo Berrettini, was scheduled for Thursday night (CEST) and Zverev could look with satisfaction at what the competition is doing.
Because the German number one had previously made another statement: If you want to win the tournament, you have to beat me first.
Including winning the gold medal in Tokyo and triumphing at the Masters in Cincinnati, the fourth in the world rankings has now won 16 matches in a row.
Harris had caused quite a stir before the duel with Zverev with clear successes against Denis Shapovalov, number seven on the seeding list, and the previously strong American Reilly Opelka.
Team Zverev assessed the South African's hard-to-read serve as particularly dangerous and should initially feel confirmed.
The first sentence was incredibly tight.
“Harris plays well, Sascha clearly has problems.
It's hard to adjust to your own way, ”said Mischa Zverev at Eurosport.
Again and again, the German top player was driven outwards by his opponent, gave up his serve and needed a re-break to reach the tiebreak.
Zverev then fended off a set ball to win the passage himself.
There were discussions about the decisive rallies.
Zverev repeatedly complained that the players were shown annoyingly on the large video screens.
Not an easy situation for Harris, who threw a bottle on the hard court after losing the set and then had problems staying on it.
Zverev quickly took the service from his opponent and played the round convincingly to the end.
With a high rate on his powerful first serves, he always put pressure on Harris, who could not withstand it.
Also in the third sentence, Zverev made it very clear that he has more plans in the tournament.
In the women's category, British qualifier Emma Raducanu continued her sensational triumph and reached the semi-finals for the first time. The 18-year-old prevailed in a good 80 minutes 6: 3, 6: 4 against the six-year-old Olympic champion Belinda Bencic from Switzerland. She meets Maria Sakkari in the semifinals. The Greek won on Wednesday evening (local time) against the favorite Karolina Pliskova from the Czech Republic 6: 4, 6: 4 and moved into a Grand Slam semi-final for the second time in her career.
Right at the start, Raducanu gave up her serve in the first game.
The world number 150 recovered on the big stage in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
but quickly and got the first set after only 36 minutes.
Raducanu also showed a clear performance in the second round and has not yet lost a set at this US Open.
She is only the third semi-finalist at the US Open to be ranked outside the top 100.
Before her, only the Belgian Kim Clijsters had made it in her comeback victory in 2009 and the US legend Billie Jean King in 1979.
At Wimbledon, Raducanu had also surprisingly reached the round of 16 this year, but had to give up at the time.