10/25/2020 9:54 AM
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 10/25/2020 9:54 AM
Diego Schwartzman, ninth in the world ranking, will play his first final as a member of the top ten this Sunday, October 25.
He will do it against German Alexander Zverev, local in the ATP 250 in Cologne, in a key game for his goal of reaching the London Masters in November.
The match will
be played at 15:30
(Argentine time) in the German city.
It will be at 7:30 p.m. local time and the four hours difference is due to the fact that the time zone in Europe changed just this Sunday.
There will be live and direct
televising
of
DirecTV
, through its channels 615 and 1615 HD, in addition to DirecTV Go.
It was not an easy triumph for the second-seeded of the tournament in the semifinal against
Felix Auger-Aliassime
.
The
Peque
used two hours and 31 minutes to beat the Canadian 6-4, 5-7 and 6-4, just 20 years old and 22nd in the world, who maintained his aggressiveness until the end and prevented the Argentine from closing the game when he served 5-4 in the second set.
"He
is the invincible man
, the undefeated here. He is a great player, he likes to play in Germany, he has many titles here, he is very confident. So I have to rest and be ready," Schwartzman remarked on Zverev, rival of his tenth ATP final, after a match that demanded him physically and mentally.
Schwartzman seeks the title in Cologne.
"I have to beat the invincible man then, heh," joked who will play his
third final of the season,
after the Masters 1000 in Rome and the ATP in Córdoba.
And he comes from being a semifinalist at Roland Garros, where he lost to champion Rafael Nadal.
Zverev beat 19-year-old Jannik Sinner (46) of Italy 7-6 6-3 in one hour and 48 minutes in the first semi-final.
It will be the fourth time that both players have faced each other.
In 2014, on the brick dust of Kitzbuhel, the Argentine won 6-1 and 6-0.
Zverev won in the round of 16 of the Masters 1000 in Paris, on concrete and indoors, 6-4 and 6-2.
And in the only duel in a Grand Slam, Schwartzman defeated the German in the round of 16 of the US Open 2019 by 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 and 6-3.
Schwartzman defeated Zverev in the round of 16 of the 2019 US Open 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 and 6-3. AFP Photo
Schwartzman's future
The Argentine knows what his next stop will be.
He will face Serbian Dusan Lajovic in the opening round of the
ATP 500 in Vienna
, who will have Novak Djokovic, the world number one, as the top seed, according to the main draw draw carried out this Saturday.
Lajovic (25) is a rival who he beat three times, in Istanbul 2017 and in the 2018 and 2020 editions of the Australian Open, and with whom he lost on one occasion, in the Davis Cup series played at the Tecnópolis venue in 2015, that Argentina beat Serbia.
In the case of advancing to the round of 16,
Peque
would find the winner of the cross between the Pole Hubert Hurkacz (31) and a tennis player emerged from the classification.
The Vienna ATP 500 will distribute prizes of 1,550,950 euros and will have Austrian Dominic Thiem (3) as second seed, who will also defend the title.
Meanwhile, the third will be Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (5), fourth the Russian Daniil Medvedev (6), fifth his compatriot Andrey Rublev (8) and sixth Schwartzman (9).
The Viennese contest has been played since 1974 and the only Argentine to lift the trophy throughout history was Juan Martín Del Potro from Tandil, who was crowned champion in the 2012 edition.
Look also
Diego Schwartzman vs Alexander Zverev, for the final of the ATP 250 in Cologne: schedule and where to see it live on TV
Diego Schwartzman suffered too much to qualify for his first final as top 10