PARIS, France (AFP) — Alexander Zverev beat fierce rival Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarterfinals of the Paris Masters on Friday, while Holger Rune edged Alex de Minaur to keep alive his hopes of reaching the ATP Tour Finals.
Zverev’s 7-5, 6-4 win over Tsitsipas kept him in the running to claim his first title in Paris after losing to Daniil Medvedev in the 2020 championship match.
World No. 3 Zverev — the highest-ranked player left in the draw — will face 2022 champion Rune in Saturday’s semi-final after the Dane overcame De Minaur 6-4, 4-6, 7-5.
The 16th meeting between the 27-year-old German and 26-year-old Greek was evenly matched during a hard-fought first set.
“At the beginning, he was outplaying me but then I found my rhythm from the baseline,” Zverev said on court.
“And when I had my chance I used it in the first set.”
Indeed once Zverev broke late in the opener and early in the second, it became a comfortable ride to just his sixth win against his long-time Greek rival.
The loss ended the chances of the world No. 11 Tsitsipas of reaching the end-of-year ATP Finals — having won the showpiece event in 2019.
Tsitsipas and Zverev started cautiously with both offering up opportunities for early breaks in their first service games.
But they soon found their range as the first set looked destined to require a tie-break to separate the pair on the quick surface at Paris’ Bercy Arena.
However, the first break points of the match eventually came with Tsitsipas serving at 5-5, the German claiming the second on a double fault.
The Greek saved two set points and secured a break-back point of his own but Zverev dug in to hold.
Tsitsipas’ shoulders visibly sagged as he offered up break point after break point at 1-1 in the second set.