Final stop only in the quarter-finals - 2024-04-11 15:00:34

Marozsán bei den Miami Open:

Written by David Garai

In the quarterfinals of the men’s hard court tennis tournament, Fábián Marozsán was defeated in two sets by the German Alexander Zverev.

The Hungarian player started the tournament held in Florida at number 57 in the world rankings and was in great form. He didn’t lose a single set against the American Aleksandar Kovacevic, the Dane Holger Rune – sixth in the world rankings – or the Australian Alexei Popyrin. In the round of 16 he beat another top 10 player, Australian Alex de Minaur. As a result, he improved to number 38 in the unofficial ATP world rankings.

The biggest challenge

On Thursday, however, there was a real challenge: 26-year-old Alexander Zverev, who became the Olympic champion in Tokyo, is a two-time ATP world champion and is currently in 5th place in the world rankings. The German has collected a total of 21 titles so far and reached the final of the US Open in 2020. At times he was number two in the world rankings and has already earned over USD 40 million in prize money.

The two players met for the first time in Miami. This pairing would have been possible in February at the Davis Cup qualification in Tatabánya (3-2 win for Germany), but Zverev had to miss out due to injury.

Stop balls a real weapon

The third quarter-final of the tournament began on Thursday at 1 p.m. local time at 29°C at the Hard Rock Stadium. The home of the NFL team Miami Dolphins has been converted into a temporary arena with a capacity of 14,000 spectators for the tennis tournament since 2019.

At the beginning of the game, Fábián Marozsán held up well, but on the fourth break he was unable to prevent Zverev from taking the lead, who ran away with a 3-1 lead. Nevertheless, the Hungarian continued to fight and tried to vary his game imaginatively, with his infamous stop balls in particular being a real weapon. However, the Hungarian was unable to use his first break point when the score was 2:4. Of all things, he made his first double fault in his own service game when the score was 3:5; Zverev was able to secure the first set.

Second set balanced for a long time

Both players also tried to adapt to the wind. While Marozsán’s forehand was extremely dangerous, he made too many mistakes on his backhand. After Zverev was warned for time play, an even fight developed on the pitch. However, with the score at 5:5, Zverev was able to cleverly use his serve game to win the match after 1:37 hours.

Marozsán lost the third ATP quarter-final of his career after being eliminated last year in Shanghai against Hubert Hurkacz and before that in Sofia against Jan-Lennard Struff. Nevertheless, he can look forward to prize money of 185,000 US dollars and an improved position among the top 40 in the world rankings.

Zverev also confirmed after the game that Marozsán challenges his opponents very much and is an incredible player. His performances make him a feared international opponent who is capable of turning the game around at any time.