taken to five sets<\/a> in his first match and his level fluctuated wildly against world number 52 Halys on a humid evening in New York.<\/p>\nAn exhausted Zverev raised his arms aloft after completing a 6-4 4-6 7-6 (7-3) 6-7 (3-7) 6-3 win in four hours and 33 minutes.<\/p>\n
“I hope at some point I’ll start playing better,” Zverev said afterwards.<\/p>\n
“It’s great to be announced as the top seed on this court until you almost lose every time.”<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old is the first top seed in the Open era to play two five-set matches in the first two rounds of a major.<\/p>\n
World number two Zverev faces another late night of recovery, having not gone to sleep until 5am on Wednesday morning after his victory over Lorenzo Sonego.<\/p>\n
Zverev’s side of the draw opened up even further on Thursday – but it remains to be seen if the Wimbledon runner-up has the form to take advantage.<\/p>\n
Zverev is the only top-20 player remaining in his quarter of the draw and will face 25th seed Alejandro Tabilo – who he has never lost to – next.<\/p>\n
Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti, who has a winning 3-2 head-to-head over Zverev, was a potential fourth-round opponent.<\/p>\n
However, the 13th seed is out after struggling physically in a 3-6 6-1 6-2 6-2 loss to Australian wildcard Dane Sweeny.<\/p>\n
Based on seedings, Zverev could have faced sixth seed Alex de Minaur in the quarter-finals, but the Australian also lost on Thursday to Botic van de Zandschulp.<\/p>\n
Six of the players left in the men’s draw have reached Grand Slam singles finals – and only three have lifted a major trophy.<\/p>\n
Zverev won this year’s French Open and Alcaraz has seven major titles to his name, while Daniil Medvedev won the US Open in 2021.<\/p>\n
Fifth seed Taylor Fritz, who lost just two games in his second-round win, was runner-up to Sinner in New York two years ago and is a potential semi-final opponent for Zverev.<\/p>\n
French Open runner-up Flavio Cobolli was taken to five sets in his first round and needed four to see off qualifier Tristan Schoolkate in round two, while two-time major finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas has struggled for form in recent years.<\/p>\n
Zverev could only meet second seed Alcaraz – his main pre-tournament rival for the title, despite the Spaniard having barely played for four months with a wrist injury – in the final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top seed Alexander Zverev endured another gruelling five-set US Open match as he overcame Quentin Halys at 02:15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-835997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835997","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=835997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}