Alexander Zverev rolls past Lloyd Harris to book US Open semi-final return trip
Olympic gold medalist Alexander Zverev has made it back to the US Open semi-finals a year after finishing as the runner-up at the hard-court grand slam tournament.
The 24-year-old from Germany saved a set point in the opener and wound up beating unseeded Lloyd Harris 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-4 at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday.
The fourth-seeded Zverev will take a 16-match winning streak into his match against either Novak Djokovic or Matteo Berrettini in the last four on Friday.
Zverev lost to Dominic Thiem in a fifth-set tiebreaker in last year’s championship match at Flushing Meadows after taking the first two sets.
In the quarter-finals on Wednesday, Harris broke to lead 5-3 in the first set and served for the set but got broken. Then in the tie-breaker, he held a set point at 6-5 but he missed a forehand and dropped the next two points, too, to cede the set. “Somehow managed to win that first set,” Zverev said. “Loosened me up a little bit.”
Zverev then took leads of 3-0 in the second set and 4-0 in the third.
The 46th-ranked Harris, a 24-yearold from South Africa, had eliminated three seeded opponents No 7 Denis Shapovalov, No 22 Reilly Opelka and No 25 Karen Khachanov to reach his first major quarter-final.
Shortly after he lost to Thiem in last year’s final, Zverev was accused by a former girlfriend of domestic abuse, allegations he repeatedly has denied.
His second consecutive US Open semifinal will come against Djokovic, who is bidding for a calendar-year grand slam, or No 6 Berrettini. Their quarter-final, a rematch of the Wimbledon final won by Djokovic in July, was scheduled for Wednesday night.
“I am going to watch it, like everybody else, I guess,” Zverev said. “I hope it goes for 8 hours and 30 minutes.”