The German cut a frustrated figure after missing out on two set points in the opening tie-break but quickly recovered for a 6-7(8), 6-4, 6-3 victory in Toronto. Zverev raced out to 3-0 leads in the second and third sets and maintained a high level throughout the final set in a comfortable finish.<\/p>\n
“I had to tell myself, even though I lost the first set, I thought we were both playing actually quite well,” Zverev said after improving to 4-0 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series. <\/p>\n
“I did one or two mistakes in the end [of the tie-break], and I was very unlucky with the net cord on set point. But all in all, I thought it was a high level, and if I continue playing that way, I’m going to get my chances \u2014 and that’s what I did.”<\/p>\n
Now into his 75th tour-level semi-final, Zverev joins Novak Djokovic<\/a> (196) among the only two active men to reach that mark. By advancing to his 21st semi-final at the Masters 1000s, his first since last year’s Rolex Paris Masters<\/a>, Zverev moved ahead of Roddick for seventh-most in series history (since 1990).<\/p>\n In a battle of former Canada champions, 2017 Montreal champ Zverev ended the repeat bid of his opponent. Popyrin was a perfect 9-0 at the ATP Masters 1000 after his surprise title run last year in Montreal.<\/p>\n The Aussie snatched the opening set with a pickup volley that clipped the net and dribbled over, but his momentum was immediately halted by a professional effort from the No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings. While a late second-set wobble handed Popyrin his lone break of the match, Zverev reasserted his authority with a crucial five-game run from 4-4 in the middle set.<\/p>\n “I had to find a return position in the beginning because he’s a very big server, and when he gets into a rhythm, it’s very difficult against him,” added Zverev. “I did that in the second and third set. Honestly, I can’t complain about much. I played one loose game on my serve in the second set, but apart from that, it was pretty good.”<\/p>\n Zverev won 82 per cent of his first-serve points, according to Infosys ATP Stats, and claimed 16 of his last 17 points on serve. He closed out the match in style with a drop-volley winner and now awaits Karen Khachanov<\/a> or Alex Michelsen<\/a> in the semis.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Match Report Zverev’s comeback ends Popyrin’s Toronto title defence German becomes second active men’s player to reach 75…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-59440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"It](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754372287_775_it-all-adds-up-banner.jpg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n