Alexander Zverev continued his quest for a second Grand Slam title of the season with a straight-sets triumph in his quarter-final match at the US Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The top seed eased past Dutch underdog Botic van de Zandschulp 6-2, 7-5, 6-1 without dropping his serve. Zverev spent just over two hours on the court to secure a new career milestone by reaching the last four of all Grand Slam events within the same year for the first time. He is also the oldest player in the Open Era to achieve this feat, doing so at 29.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the more often that you get to that stage, the more normal it becomes, which is something that you should never take for granted,\u201d\u00a0Zverev said during his press conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t take it for granted at all. I know it can change in a heartbeat in tennis. I think confidence is something that is incredibly important but also can go away quite quickly, and I found that out after Wimbledon where I didn\u2019t play well throughout the two tournaments on the hard courts, and then I found it again here (at the US Open).\u201d<\/p>\n
Zverev\u2019s route to the semi-finals has been far from easy, with the German dropping 80 games so far in the tournament. In the Open Era, the only top seed to have conceded more in New York was Rafael Nadal (85) in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In contrast, the player who has dropped the fewest games so far in the men\u2019s tournament is Karen Khachanov, who is Zverev\u2019s next opponent. The Russian, who has dropped 59 games, was leading Alexander Blockx 6-2, 7-5, 3-2 before the Belgian retired injured. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s somebody that works extremely hard. He\u2019s on the practice courts more than most people,\u201d Zverev said of Khachanov.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always searching for solutions. He\u2019s always trying to find new ways to get better. He has a great coach who I\u2019ve known since the juniors. He\u2019s been with him since juniors. That I respect a lot when people go together for a long time and go together a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khachanov, who is 11 months older than the world No.2, has reached the semi-finals of a major for the third time in his career and the second at the US Open after 2022. He is currently ranked 50th in the ATP rankings but has been as high as eighth in the world. In this year\u2019s draw, Khachanov has already beaten three seeded players \u2013 Felix Auger-Aliassime, Learner Tien and Blockx (via retirement).\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe call him (Khachanov) The Professor because he knows everything about tennis, and he knows every single string tension, knows what everybody does, so that\u2019s quite fun,\u201d\u00a0Zverev commented.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve known him for many, many years, somebody that I grew up with playing junior tournaments. I have massive respect for him and I hope it\u2019s going to be a great battle on Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zverev will be the heavy favourite heading into the showdown despite a recent resurgence from Khachanov, who entered the US Open having lost five out of seven Tour-level matches played since the start of Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been in the top five for so many years. This year he also took a step forward. He won his first Grand Slam and played the Wimbledon final as well. He\u2019s coming up really in hot form,\u201d\u00a0Khachanov said.<\/p>\n
Zverev leads Khachanov 6-3 in their head-to-head. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev continued his quest for a second Grand Slam title of the season with a straight-sets triumph…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-886648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}