Popyrin fights!

The defending champion is still in the race to try to keep his points and given Zverev's form there may still be something to do.

How would you describe Zverev's tournament so far? Classic? The German is reproducing what we've seen week after week since the start of the season, that is to say, very average performances but with a lot of wins nonetheless. Obviously, just with his quality of service, he's protected, but in terms of his game, how sluggish it is! If Cerundolo hadn't been injured, I think he would have won again. But hey, Zverev is still present, and the more important the matches become, the more he will also increase his power, normally. I find Popyrin to be much better in this tournament when I compare their matches. The Australian was under enormous pressure when he started defending his 1,000 points, and in the end, he's doing the job. A tense match against a local to start with, a victory over Daniil afterwards, and a match won against Rune with a feeling of superiority. Throughout the first set he was ahead and absolutely did not deserve to lose it, he could have collapsed but he came back into the fight and his mental resilience paid off again. He gets out of complicated matches and is still ultra motivated for the rest of this tournament, I really like his state of mind and his level of play this week! On the other hand, he is down 3/0 against Zverev without ever having taken a set from him.. In these matches there is a recent one at the Olympics on clay at Roland (logical) and two matches which date from 2019 or less, Popyrin has changed dimension since then and I think he still has some weapons to hang on. Already he serves very well and then he does not hesitate to come to the net, try things, go for it frankly! Zverev will still be very favorite but I do not see him getting out of it easily unless he drastically increases his level of play