Alexander Zverev wasn’t able to defend his Hamburg Open trophy from last year as Arthur Fils was able to overcome him in a heated clash.
It’s not been a good Sunday for the favorites, as this match featured a second upset of the day. In Gstaad, favorite Matteo Berrettini crushed his opponent in the final to win his ninth career trophy.
However, in Bastad, Nuno Borges won his maiden ATP Trophy by beating heavily favored Rafael Nadal in the final, and in Hamburg, Fils won his maiden ATP 500 trophy against heavily favored Zverev.
The German arrived in Hamburg with a lot of uncertainty about whether he’d play at the event. The knee injury he sustained at Wimbledon proved more complicated than initially thought, and with the Olympics so close, the German wasn’t sure whether he could even play.
Early impressions were quite negative, but he gave it a go after some more treatments, and it worked out well for him. He’s been pretty strong the entire week, winning matches comfortably until the final.
In the final, he played a very complicated match because he faced a player who had given him some trouble in the past, such as in the most recent match at Halle.
Fils took an early break in this match after his opponent’s slow start. Slow starts have become common for Zverev, as his Roland Garros campaign this year featured a lot of them.
After a slow start, Zverev started to play better but then was forced to call a mid-game medical timeout, which was a very bad sign, even though it wasn’t clear what the issue it was that prompted him to call for a medical timeout, but prior to the match, the German said that the risk of re-injuring himself was there.
“To be honest, you know, the risk will stay for the next 2, 3, 4 weeks maybe because that’s how long the bone heals, and that’s what everybody told me. But, at the end of the day I also knew that I don’t want to rest for 4 weeks or 6 weeks because, now we’re playing on the surface where I don’t see that big of a risk of doing the same motion again and doing the same movement again.”
As the match went on, his level improved. His serve started to hit slowly, and he was hitting the ball cleaner and cleaner. Fils, on the other side of the net, was playing a great match as well, with an excellent overall level.
However, Zverev’s problem was mainly not using his chances, as he finished the opening set zero out of nine on break points, which is a massive contrast to his opponent using one of his two chances, which meant the Frenchman won the opening set 6-3.
The second set was better for Zverev because he could finally use his 17th break chance to break and take the lead. From there, he was able to win the second 6-3 to force a decider. He played the second set almost flawlessly.
The decider opened with Zverev wasting a break chance and he wasted two more a few games later. Chances became scarce for both as they handled their serves well after that.
The battle was fierce, but neither was able to find a breakthrough. Zverev really went all out towards the end of the match, attacking relentlessly, hoping to get a breakthrough because the match was dragging far longer than he had hoped.
Fils also tried every strategy he had, as at one point, he even attempted an underarm serve, which the crowd in Hamburg didn’t like and started booing him. On top of that, the two also had a discussion during one of the changeovers, and things were clearly quite heated under the roof in Hamburg.
The set ended in a tie-break as Zverev used only 1 of the 22 break points he had in the match. In the tie-break, it was a one-man show to start, as Fils played amazing tennis to jump out to a 5-0 lead.
The Frenchman was just on fire in the last 15 minutes of the match, hitting some incredible shots and outhitting Zverev by a wide margin. He won the tie-break 7-1 in style, to win the match 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(1) and lift the 2024 Hamburg Open trophy.
