Alexander Zverev has reached the first Grand Slam semifinal of his career after beating Stan Wawrinka 1-6 6-3 6-4 6-2 in the quarter final of the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Zverev became the first German player to reach a Grand Slam semifinal since Tommy Haas at Wimbledon ten years ago.
“It feels awesome. I have done well in World Tour Finals, won Masters, but could never make that breakthrough at a Grand Slam. I am happy to be in the semifinals. You can’t imagine what this means to me and I hope it will be the first of many.”, said Zverev after the quarter final match against Wawrinka.
Zverev set up a semifinal against Dominic Thiem, who beat Rafael Nadal 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 7-6 (8-6). The Austrian player leads 6-2 in his eight head-to-head matches against his younger German rival and won their most recent clash in the semifinal of the ATP Finals in London.
“I will have a cold glass of Coca Cola in my hotel room, with air conditioning, hopefully watching Nadal and Thiem play for six hours. That’s my assessment of the match”, joked Zverev in his post-match interview.
Zverev started his 2020 season with three defeats against Alex De Minaur, Denis Shapovalov and Stefanos Tsitsipas at the ATP Finals, but he bounced back at this Australian Open, where he dropped just one set against Wawrinka in the quarter final.
“After losing the first set against Stan, I was getting ready to talk to the press about why I lost in straight sets. I turned it around and my energy picked up a bit. I wasn’t used to his ball. I needed to get used it. Thank God it worked out. I hope you can see in ATP Cup I was horrible, but this is a Grand Slam and this is where you’re meant to play your best tennis and I have been doing that. My energy picked up a little bit”, said Zverev.
