Alexander Zverev looked up into his box a few times on Friday evening, a little annoyed, a little looking for help.

But apart from these moments of unrest, which father Alexander senior tried to dispel from his seat in the stands with soothing gestures, Germany's best tennis player moved into the round of 16 at Roland Garros in a rather calm way against the American Brandon Nakashima - at least by his standards.

Thomas Klemm

sports editor.

  • Follow I follow

His runaways up and down - 50 wins versus as many unforced errors - would have offered more cause for excitement.

After 2:48 hours, Zverev converted his first match point to a 7: 6 (7: 2), 6: 3 and 7: 6 (7: 5) victory.

"I've improved," said the Olympic champion, referring to his previous five-set drama, including a match point that was saved: "I didn't lose that much hair today."

Nakashima, 72 places behind world number three Zverev and also dimmed down emotionally, had no means of getting the favorite into trouble.

The next opponent threatens to become more unpleasant on the clay courts of Paris: The Spanish qualifier Bernabe Zapata Miralles recently threw the two seeded Americans Taylor Fritz and John Isner out of the competition one after the other.

Nevertheless, anything but a victory for the Hamburg player against number 131 in the world, who has already had six matches in Paris, would be a big surprise.

Angelique Kerber, on the other hand, was eliminated in the third round.

As much as the Kiel native struggled against the impending defeat against Alexandra Sasnowitsch – in the end the seventeenth in the world rankings had to admit defeat 4:6 and 6:7 (5:7) to the force of the Belarusian who was thirty places lower.

For Kerber, the tender little hope of winning the fourth major tournament after the US Open, the Australian Open and Wimbledon on the unloved ash pitches in Paris and thus completing the so-called career slam disappeared.

Her "love of tennis", as Kerber said in Paris, will soon more or less blossom on her beloved lawn.

In Bad Homburg she is the defending champion, in Wimbledon she was in the semi-finals in 2021.

Only in Berlin she will not compete: "I always like to play tournaments in Germany.

But I won't play in Berlin this year because sometimes there's a lack of appreciation here and there." Kerber didn't want to give her criticism any more air.