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Hamburg's Alexander Zverev reached the first Grand Slam final of his career
Photo: Seth Wenig / dpa
The German tennis pro Alexander Zverev reached the final of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in his career at the US Open.
The 23-year-old from Hamburg won a thrilling five-set match 3: 6, 2: 6, 6: 3, 6: 4, 6: 3 against Pablo Carreño Busta from Spain on Friday (local time) in New York.
In the final on Sunday (10 p.m. CEST, on Eurosport), the seventh in the world rankings will meet last year's Russian finalist Daniil Medwedew or the Australian Open finalist Dominic Thiem from Austria.
In Melbourne, Zverev had reached a Grand Slam semi-final for the first time at the beginning of this year, but lost to Thiem before the tour was interrupted for months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
For the first time ever, he turned a 2-0 set deficit and was the first German tennis player since Michael Stich in 1994 to reach the final in Flushing Meadows.
"I couldn't believe it when I went 2-0 down, and that as a favorite. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew I had to play better tennis. I'm in my first Grand Slam Final, that's the most important thing, "said Zverev after 3:22 hours in the winner's interview on the pitch.
Zverev received a break in the very first game
He was miserable in the game against the world number 27.
started.
"He's not in balance with the basic strokes," was the interim analysis of three-time Wimbledon winner Boris Becker on the Eurosport TV channel.
To 1: 3 took the world number 27.
from Gijon in the first set Zverev played the service game.
When the German's backhand landed in the net after 40 minutes, round one was decided.
In the second set it got even worse: Zverev received a break in the first game.
He struggled, but the former top ten player Carreño Busta knew the better answer to everything and played rock solid and calm.
On the way to his first Grand Slam final, Carreño Busta was indirectly involved in the scandal surrounding world number one Novak Djokovic.
In the round of 16 on Sunday, the Spaniard had caused problems for the Serbian top player and took the serve to 6: 5 from him in the first set.
Djokovic then hit the ball backwards without looking and hit the linesman, who went down and clearly had breathing problems.
Djokovic was disqualified, Carreño Busta made it to the quarter-finals, in which he defeated the Canadian Denis Shapovalov in five sets.
You can read more about the scandal and Djokovic's disqualification here: One mistake too many
"I think Sascha is the favorite. He's soaring because it's his second Grand Slam semi-final. I don't think he feels the pressure," Becker said before the match - but initially wasn't right.
After losing the second set, Zverev left the place for a short time - and came back downright transformed.
He got stronger now, played more precisely and made fewer mistakes.
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The Spaniard Pablo Carreño Busta had to have his back treated briefly in the fifth set
Photo: Seth Wenig / AP
Busta hits a ball directly on Zverev's body
With the set win to 6: 3 hope germinated again.
In the fourth round it became briefly unpleasant when Carreño Busta hit a hard ball directly on Zverev's body with a score of 3: 5.
The Spaniard apologized immediately, but Zverev looked over the net with a mixture of incomprehension and implacability.
With an ace, Zverev finally used his fourth set ball to equalize 2-2.
Before the fifth set, Carreño Busta had to have his back treated and took a three-minute medical break.
Zverev took advantage of this weak phase and immediately took a 1-0 lead with a break.
Zverev left the first match point unused a little later, then a backhand from the Spaniard landed in the net.
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oka / dpa
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