World of sport
Roger Federer will have to wait to bring up a century of titles after he was beaten by German youngster Alexander Zverev in yesterday’s semi-finals.
The Swiss great, looking for a 100th career singles tournament win, lost in straight sets in a highclass encounter.
Zverev grabbed the match’s solitary break at 6-5 in the first set and then edged a pulsating tiebreak to run out a 7-5 7-6 (5) winner.
The match, however, ended on an unsavoury note due to an incident during the tie-beak when a ball-boy dropped a ball during a rally.
Zverev rightly asked for a let but the Federer fans in the crowd were unhappy that the point was replayed. A clearly upset Zverev said: “Firstly want to apologise for the situation in the tie-break but the ball boy dropped the ball. It’s in the rules that we have to replay the point. “I apologised to Roger at the net, he told me: ‘It’s okay, it’s in the rules.’
“I want to apologise to the crowd, Roger has a lot of fans here and for what he’s achieved he should have. I’m very sorry that this happened. I didn’t mean to upset anybody – that’s all I can say, sorry.”
Zverev will face Novak Djokovic in today’s final after the Serb saw off South Africa’s Kevin Anderson 6-2 6-2 in last night’s other semi. Meanwhile, Jamie Murray’s bid to reach a maiden final at the ATP Finals was thwarted by American duo Jack Sock and Mike Bryan.
Britain’s Murray and Brazilian partner Bruno Soares were semifinalists for the third straight year at London’s O2.
They hauled themselves level after dropping the first set, but Sock and Bryan won the match tiebreak 10-4 to reach today’s final.
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