Title holder, Alexander Zverev is only two victories away from retaining his trophy. Friday evening, the world number 3, although ghostly for almost an hour, qualified again for the semi-finals by winning the decisive game of the last set (2-6, 6-3, 7-6) against Daniil Medvedev, against whom he remained on five defeats and who obtained two match points.
Alexander Zverev can continue to dream of a second consecutive title in this Rolex Paris Masters which is making its big debut this week at the Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre. Beaten in his last five matches against Daniil Medveved, who seemed to have definitively found the key to disrupting the German giant, the world number 3 stopped this series of defeats on Friday by winning in three sets after a final decisive game (2-6, 6-3, 7-6) in the last quarter-final on the program and returned to success against his bête noire of the last two years. The outgoing winner in the capital’s indoor tournament had not beaten the Russian since a three-set success in the third round of the Masters 1000 in Cincinnati in 2023.
The first set as well as the start of the second suggested that it was not yet Friday that Zverev would ward off fate against the former world number 1. Totally transparent, as still stunned by the scenario of the last five duels, the unfortunate finalist of the Vienna tournament last Sunday was down a set to nothing with a break already conceded in the following round when he, fortunately for him, regained momentum and found that consistency in his game which had allowed him to escape the trap set up by the catchy Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina the day before.
Zverev will meet Sinner again, six days after his defeat in Vienna
If the first round had given rise to a demonstration from Medvedev while the second had seen Zverev, again after a delay in starting, quickly lead the debates to reset the counters to zero, the two champions then went blow for blow in the third round. The German found himself on the brink when the “Tsar” obtained two match points at 6-5 in favor of the 13th in the ranking. Once again, the winner of the last edition, still at the Accor Arena at the time, found the strength to stay alive.
Later, when he restarted the match without wanting to in the tie-break by completely missing a smash when he had made a gap first, the audience at the Paris La Défense Arena must have said to themselves that this time it was the world number 3 who had just missed his chance. However, the first match point proved to be the right one for Zverev, who will meet Jannik Sinner on Saturday for a place in the final, his tormentor from last Sunday, and will play his fourth semi-final in the tournament. But the German has come a long way.
