German fourth seed Alexander Zverev moved into the Miami Open semi-finals with a dominant win which ended the run of Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan.
Zverev, 26, won 6-3 7-5 to reach the last four at the event for the first time since 2018.
The Olympic champion used his serve to great effect, while taking four of the seven break points he created against 57th-ranked Marozsan.
Zverev will play Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz or Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov next.
Top seed Alcaraz and Dimitrov, seeded 11th, play their quarter-final match in Thursday’s night session at the Florida event.
“I’m happy to be back in these late stages of these tournaments, playing the best players in the world, I think there are only those left,” Zverev said.
“I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
Italian second seed Jannik Sinner and Russian third seed Daniil Medvedev booked their places in the last four on Wednesday, setting up a rematch of their recent Australian Open final.
Zverev was beaten by Medvedev in the Melbourne last four as his wait for a maiden Grand Slam title goes on.
Despite not yet being able to land one of the sport’s biggest prizes, Zverev has continued to demonstrate why he is one of the ATP Tour’s leading players and reached his 17th Masters 1,000 semi-final by sweeping aside Marozsan.
Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray are the only active players to have played in more Masters semi-finals.
Against Marozsan, Zverev’s quality shone through in a dominant opening set where his huge serve was a reliable and effective weapon.
The German broke in the third game at the fourth attempt and had only lost one point on serve until Marozsan – who had already beaten top-10 players Holger Rune and Alex de Minaur on his way to the last eight – threatened to break back in the sixth.
However, Zverev saved that with an accurate serve under pressure and sealed the set when Maroszan produced a double fault on set point.
A tight second set saw Maroszan survive two break points at 1-0 and 3-2 before Zverev took a third chance on match point with a brilliant backhand winner down the line.
