The prince of the night

This will be a fourth night session for Zverev, who plays only in New York’s darkness.

A relatively short and simple match for Zverev against Tabilo, and the German really needed that after two very long matches in his opening rounds. Maybe he now has full control of the night conditions and was able to take advantage of them. I also found him a bit more impactful on serve and present on return. He’s rediscovered some aggressiveness on the forehand side and in baseline play, which he sometimes lacks when he’s too passive. It was a clean match from Zverev, who’s moving forward step by step. And now he faces a player against whom he has a score to settle.

I remember very well the match in Rome between these two players, where Zverev was on track to steamroll Darderi, but the German tightened up completely and ended up imploding mentally and tennis-wise, even though everything had been going perfectly. The match-up is difficult for Darderi, because he doesn’t create enough separation with his serve and doesn’t have a real lethal weapon from the baseline to hurt him. His main weapon in that win was definitely the crowd.

The Italian is moving forward as well, but his run lacks a truly big win against a good player to make you think he’ll be genuinely dangerous against Zverev. So far, he’s only faced opponents who are too inexperienced at this level and, above all, whose game suited the Italian quite well. We’re talking about Wendelken, Svrcina, and Swenney, who don’t have a big serve or much baseline power. Darderi was almost never rushed from the baseline and also had the luxury of building his points properly. Now we’re switching to an almost opposite profile with a Zverev who serves like a cannon and on top of that keeps that famous solidity from the back. Darderi will have nothing to lose this time and might be able to surprise him by playing one really hot set, but beyond that, I don’t really believe in his chances.