Despite apparent stomach problems, Alexander Zverev made a successful start to the strong ATP event in Beijing. Three days after his tournament victory in Chengdu/China, Germany’s number one prevailed in the first round duel 6:7 (2), 6:1, 6:4 against former world number eight Diego Schwartzman from Argentina. However, Yannick Hanfmann and Jan-Lennard Struff were eliminated. Zverev’s round of 16 opponent on Saturday is the Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
In the second round, the 26-year-old German caused a moment of shock when he quickly left the court with a pained expression in the middle of his opponent’s service game. A little later he told the medical staff who gave him a pill that he had to vomit. Zverev’s performance didn’t seem to suffer from the stomach problems. After losing the first set in the tiebreak due to two missed service games and an unusually large number of forehand errors, he then acted much more focused and secured victory. “The conditions here are completely different than in Chengdu. The court is very slow and so are the balls. I’m happy because Diego played at a very high level,” said Zverev, who did not mention his stomach problems in the on-court interview became. Zverev, a two-time semi-finalist in the Chinese capital (2017, 2019), can continue to hope for the third title in his comeback season and the 22nd overall on the ATP tour. Before winning the tournament in Chengdu, the Hamburg native triumphed in his hometown at the end of July.
As expected, the Karlsruher Hanfmann had to admit defeat to world number two Carlos Alcaraz 4:6, 3:6 after a strong qualifying round. For the 31-year-old, who played a good game, it was the second defeat in the second duel with the Spanish Wimbledon winner. Struff (Warstein), who also had a difficult draw, lost a little later 6:7 (5:7), 3:6 against French Open finalist Casper Ruud from Norway. The world number nine achieved a victory over the German number two for the first time at the fourth attempt. With the exception of the US Open winner Novak Djokovic, a large part of the world’s elite is teeing off at the 500 tournament in Beijing.
