By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
Alexander Zverev handed Alex de Minaur a beating after sweeping him in straight sets- 6.4, 7.6, 6.4- and formalized his entry in the semifinal round of the ongoing French Open on June 6, 2024, in Paris, France.
Despite coming off a grueling and exhausting five-set showdown against Holger Rune to get to the quarterfinals, Zverev shrugged off his stamina issues and pulled off an incredible display of tennis.
In just three sets, Zverev was able to dominate Rune and relied on his consistent baseline power from the get-go.
There was just nothing that Rune could do as soon as Zverev was in his groundstroke rhythm in the opening set. From his forehand top-spin strokes to his flat backhand attacks, the German ace was just too much to handle for his young challenger.
Rune rewrote the script in the second set, coming out with a bang after scoring a break point to force a tiebreaker on Zverev.
However, Zverev survived the scare, as he operated on the net area to close out the second set win with two smashes in the no man’s land and a sweet drop shot to Rune’s backhand side.
It was then all Zverev in the third after unleashing another dominant offensive snowball performance, holding all of his service possessions to cruise through the sweeping win.
Zverev capped off his stellar quarterfinal win with 104 total points won, five break points, and an impressive 70% win rate on his first service.
After a day of rest, Zverev will return to the clay court and will face the world’s no. 7 ranked Casper Ruud in the semifinals of the men’s singles category.
