Taylor Fritz Crushes Second Seed Alexander Zverev at Swiss Indoors Basel’s Opener

Rising next-generation star Taylor Fritz stuns the No.2 seed Alexander Zverev in straight sets 7-6, 6-4 in just 1 hour and 26 minutes in the opening round of the Swiss Indoors Basel 2019 on Tuesday.

Set one

The first set was quite an equal one with very little to differentiate between the two. The set saw only one breakpoint till the tiebreaker with Zverev missing the point to break Fritz in the third game of the match. Zverev and Fritz went onto hold their service games till 6-6 as the set was forced to go through the tiebreaker.

The No.2 seed started to dominate the tiebreaker as he won the first four points consecutively with two mini-breaks. However, Taylor Fritz fought back hard to win 5 consecutive points and earned a set point at 6-5. Zverev saved the set point and got the chance to secure the first set at 7-6 but it was the American who saved a set point and win three consecutive points to claim the opening set of the match 7-6 after 51 minutes.

Set two

Alexander Zverev squandered the second breakpoint of the match in the first service game of Taylor Fritz. Fritz then stepped up to break Zverev for the first time in the match in the next game and got himself to the driver seat of the match. He then held his all service games to win the set 6-4 and claim the match at beating Zverev for the first time in his career.

He will face Alex de Minaur in the second round of the ATP 500 event in Basel. Earlier, the 20-year-old Australian had defeated Hugo Dellien in straight sets in the first round of the Swiss Indoors Basel on Monday.

On the other hand, with this defeat, the defending ATP Finals champion, Alexander Zverev is in danger of losing his spot in the top 8 if any two players between Fabio Fognini, Matteo Berrettini, David Goffin, and Roberto Bautista Agut achieve good results in this week.