Lorenzo Sonego he had to bow in the round of 16 of the ATP500 in Halle (Germany) to Alexander Zverev (n.4 in the ranking). The ATP n.57 lost on a score of 6-4 7-6 (5) to the German, never managing to find a way to defuse the great effectiveness of his opponent’s serve on the Teutonic grass. With this result, Zverev reaches the quarter-finals and will face the Frenchman Arthur Philsscored today against the other landlord Dominik Koepfer.
In the first set the Turin player pays the price in the opening game. The great depth of Sascha’s shots is the discriminating factor and the break proves to be decisive for the partial. Sonego raises his level, finding many points from the serve-forehand combination, but in return there are no possibilities. Zverev serves like a train and also wastes chances in the ninth game, not taking advantage of four set points in our standard bearer’s turn at serve. Sonny is very good at emerging from 0-40 in a remarkable way, but in the tenth game he can’t do anything and the 6-4 smiles at the world no.4.
In the second set the Piedmontese puts a lot of ardor, especially in managing his shifts in service. Zverev, however, is literally unplayable at serve and the blue never finds a way to create doubts in his opponent’s head. We go to the tie-break and there is no shortage of regrets. The local tennis player starts off very strong, with two mini-breaks ahead (3-0), but his management of the subsequent serving rounds is terrible. Sascha draws strength from this and with some excellent plays, such as a forehand passer on the line, he takes home the match with a score of 7-5.
In statistics What left us speechless was the German’s 79% of his first serves on court, from which he got 86% of his fifteens. Even more impressive is the number of runs with the second batting, equal to 83%. Numbers that were decisive in the progress of the challenge.
