Alexander Zverev gave Germany a 1-0 lead over Croatia in the last qualifying round for the Davis Cup Final 8 by beating Matej Dodig 6-4, 7-6 (3) on Saturday.<\/p>\n
It was Zverev\u2019s first match since winning the U.S. Open final last weekend against American Ben Shelton. That came after the 29-year-old Zverev won his first Grand Slam title at the French Open in June.<\/p>\n
The second-ranked Zverev, who had 15 aces, dominated on the indoor hardcourt in Halle, Germany, with Dodig having no break-point chances.<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s Daniel Altmaier will play Croatia\u2019s Dino Prizmic in the second singles match later Saturday.<\/p>\n
Doubles and reverse singles are scheduled for Sunday in the best-of-five match series. The winning team advances to the Final 8 in Bologna, Italy, in November.<\/p>\n
Shelton looking to bounce back<\/p>\n
American pair Christian Harrison and Austin Krajicek made it 2-1 against the Czech Republic after winning their doubles match over Adam Pavlasek and Patrik Riki 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (8).<\/p>\n
Shelton will have a chance to seal the series in Prague when he plays Jakub Mensik a day after he lost to Jiri Lehecka and allowed the Czechs to level the score at 1-1.<\/p>\n
Austria made the Final 8 after Jurji Rodionov beat Belgium\u2019s Zizou Bergs 7-6, 6-3 to build an insurmountable 3-1 advantage. Austria also won the doubles match on the outdoor clay in Vienna, a day after it split the opening single matches with Belgium.<\/p>\n
South Korea makes Davis Cup history for Asia<\/p>\n
South Korea earlier became the first Asian nation to reach the Final 8 after clinching its match against India 3-1.<\/p>\n
The South Koreans came from a set down in both singles matches on Friday to lead 2-0. <\/p>\n
It lost the opening doubles Saturday but Soonwoo Kwan beat Sumit Nagal 6-1, 6-2 in the first reverse singles.<\/p>\n
The Final 8 format was introduced in 2022.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here <\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev gave Germany a 1-0 lead over Croatia in the last qualifying round for the Davis Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-901849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}