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Alexander Zverev made it into his eighth Masters final in Madrid
Photo:
CHEMA MOYA / EPA
The German tennis professional Alexander Zverev has won a Masters for the fourth time in his career, a tournament in the highest 1000 category on the ATP Tour.
It took a decisive set against the Italian Matteo Berrettini, 7: 6 (10: 8), 6: 4 and 6: 3, Zverev prevailed.
The last time Zverev had also won in Madrid, the tournament victory was three years ago.
Zverev got three of his four Masters victories on clay.
Both players acted nervously and made a lot of unnecessary mistakes.
In the semifinals against Dominic Thiem, Zverev had bribed with an excellent service game.
However, his own service caused him problems against Berrettini.
Zverev made a double fault in the first service game - it shouldn't be the last.
Even when Zverev's serve came, the problems did not decrease: Berrettini defended strongly and repeatedly involved the 24-year-old in long rallies.
The Italian himself played in a variety of ways, repeatedly throwing in stop balls, but thereby also giving away simple points.
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Quarreled with his racket and himself: Matteo Berrettini
Photo: OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP
In the first set Berrettini seemed way ahead of the German, especially after a break to 3: 4.
In the following serve, however, the errors in the tenth in the world rankings piled up, Zverev responded with the re-break.
Decision in the first set in the tie-break
A decision was only made in the tie-break, in which Zverev became more and more passive and was quickly 0: 5 behind, but even made up for 6: 6 through simple mistakes by Berrettini.
At 8: 8, Zverev risked too much on the second serve and hit another double fault.
Berrettini converted his third set point.
In the opening phase of the second set, Berrettini seemed to be looking for a quick decision, the Italian won the first three service games without losing points.
In the game to 2-2 he seemed frustrated for the first time;
because he couldn't beat Zverev's service game, Berrettini shouted in the direction of his box.
Berrettini almost consistently went for Winner, but made almost as many unnecessary mistakes.
At 4: 4, he tried one of his stop balls again on his own serve, but Zverev anticipated it early and converted it to 15:40.
Suddenly Berrettini looked battered, against the break loss he hit his first double fault of the game.
Zverev then brought his service game through and equalized in sentences.
In the decision set, Zverev hit another double fault when the score was 2: 1 because he pulled through the second serve.
Then Berrettini misplaced a free forehand strike because he wanted to hit it down the line with force.
As a result, Zverev saved his service game and then got the break to 3: 2, as Berrettini again missed free forehand strokes.
It was the decision.
hba