German tennis pro Alexander Zverev has won a Masters for the fourth time in his career, a tournament of the highest 1000 category on the ATP tour. Against the Italian Matteo Berrettini, it took a decision to set, 6:7 (8:10), 6:4 and 6:3 Zverev prevailed. Last time Zverev had also won in Madrid, but the tournament victory is already three years ago. Zverev took three of his four Masters victories on sand.
Both players acted nervously and made many unnecessary mistakes, in the end there were 28 Unforced errors with 16 winners at Zverev, Berrettini even hit 50 errors with 32 winning strokes. In the semifinals against Dominic Thiem, Zverev had bribed with an excellent serve. Against Berrettini, however, his own service caused him problems.
Right in the first serve Zverev made a double mistake – it should not be the last. Even though Zverev’s serve came, the problems were not less: Berrettini defended strongly and repeatedly involved the 24-year-old in long ball exchanges. Even the Italian played variously, repeatedly scattered stop balls, but thereby also gave simple points.
In the first set Berrettini seemed long ahead of the German, especially after a won break to 3:4. In the following serve, however, the errors in the world ranking tenth, Zverev answered with the re-break.
Decision in the first set in the tiebreak
A decision was made only in the tiebreak, in which Zverev became more and more passive and was quickly 0:5 behind, but by simple mistakes Berrettini even equalized to the interim 6:6. With the score at 8: 8, Zverev risked too much on the second serve and hit another double fault. Berrettini converted his third Set point.
In the early stages of the second set Berrettini seemed to be looking for a quick decision, the Italian won the first three serve games without losing a point. In the match for the 2:2, however, he seemed frustrated for the first time; because he did not come against the serve of Zverev, Berrettini shouted in the direction of his box.
Berrettini went almost continuously on Winner, but beat almost as many unnecessary mistakes. At the stand of 4: 4 he tried again with his own serve one of his stop balls, which Zverev anticipated early and turned to 15: 40. Suddenly Berrettini looked stricken, against the break loss he beat his first double fault of the match. Zverev then brought his serve through and equalized in sets.
In the deciding set, Zverev hit another double fault at the stand of 2:1, because he pulled through the second serve. Then Berrettini moved a free forehand strike because he wanted to hit it with force down the line. Zverev saved his serve and then brought the break to 3: 2, as Berrettini again missed free forehand strikes. It was the decision.
