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Tennis News: Alexander Zverev’s 2023 season continues to gain momentum after earning a straight-sets victory in the second round of the Halle Open.

The ninth seed looked impressive as he downed Canadian tennis player Denis Shapovalov 6-2, 6-4 to reach the Halle Open quarter-finals.

The home side beat world number 27 Shapovalov in the opener of the game and didn’t face a single break point chance en route to winning the game in 75 minutes. She also won 82% of the points from her first serve to advance to the quarter-finals in Halle for the first time since the 2019 season.

“I’m very happy with this game,” said Zverev, who now takes a 5-3 head-to-head lead against Shapovalov.

“Mostly I’m happy with the way I returned the ball.”

The Olympic champion from Tokyo struggled to find form in the ATP tournament at the start of this season after recovering from an ankle injury that kept him out of the second half of the 2022 season. But he’s back in top form after reaching the semi-finals. Roland-Garros earlier this month and now sets a 23-15 record in 2024 thanks to its recent victory in Halle.

The host tennis player reached the Halle Open finals but lost to fellow countryman Florian Mayer in the 2016 season and lost to Roger Federer in the 2017 season.

For a place in the semi-finals of the Halle Open, Zverev will face the Chilean tennis player, Nicolas Jarry. Their draw so far is 2-2 and the Chileans won their last meeting in Geneva this season.

“In the future, it will not be easy. Jarry is a player who has a good game, very suitable for the grass pitch, but I’m looking forward to this match” Zverev said.

World No. 28 Jarry was surprisingly able to beat second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6, 7-5 for the sixth career victory over a top-10 player.

Jarry once beat a Greek tennis player, Tsitsipas, in a grass-court tournament, most notably in ‘s-Hertogenbosch’s 2019 season and the 27-year-old tennis player appeared confident throughout the match which lasted 1 hour 52 minutes when they met in Halle this week.

Keywords: Tennis, Halle Open, Alexander Zverev, Denis Shapovalov, Nicolas Jarry, Stefanos Tsitsipas