By Erik Gudris | Sunday, August 5, 2018
Alexander Zverev repeated as Citi Open champion with a solid straight sets win over Alex de Minaur.
Photo Credit: Citi Open Twitter
Alexander Zverev may have been only two years older than his opponent in the Citi Open final in Washington, D.C. But the top seeded Zverev showed his confidence and maturity in defending his ATP 500 title.
The top seeded Zverev defeated Alex de Minaur 6-2, 6-4 in hot conditions with a strong performance from start to finish.
Zverev, 21, entered seeking his second straight D.C. title and to become the first man to win back to back titles since Juan Martin del Potro in 2008 and 2009.
"Winning a tournament on its 50th annivesary is amazing. This has been a very special week for me. All those occasion and playing my brother, it was a special week," Zverev said after the win.
His opponent, Alex de Minaur, 19, found himself into his second ATP final of the season. He previously reached the Sydney final back in January and since has been on a sharp rise in the rankings.
The concern for de Minaur coming in was his near three hour comeback win in the semifinals against Andrey Rublev. Would the young Aussie have enough left physically, especially in over 100 degree temperatures on court?
In the opening games of the first set, de Minaur also had to deal with a razor sharp Zverev. The German broke de Minaur in the initial game. Zverev, controlled most of the early baseline exchanges along with making successful forays into net. Zverev broke again thanks to a netted backhand by de Minaur and soon held a 4-0 advantage.
Spurred on by the crowd, de Minaur fired down a big serve to finally get on the scoreboard at 4-1.
Yet it wasn’t enough to prevent Zverev from easily serving out the set 6-2 with a sweeping wide ace.
The second set went a little better for de Minaur who battled as hard as he could in the sweltering conditions. But the Aussie still couldn’t make a dent in Zverev’s service games who held several times at love.
Zverev ripped a forehand pass to break de Minaur for a 2-1 lead. From there, Zverev retained control of the match despite de Minaur able to hit a few crowd pleasing winners of his own.
Zverev held two match points on de Minaur’s serve at 5-3. The young Australian summoned two great serves to get back to deuce and eventually closed out the game. That forced Zverev to serve for it up 5-4.
Zverev more than proved he was up to the challenge as he stepped to the line. Zverev quickly held two more match points. he missed out on the first one, but he held his own in the final rally and forced de Minaur to net a backhand.
"Defending a title is different because you know you have a few points to defend," Zverev said in his press conference. "It shows mental strength and a lot of maturity. It was a fantastic week for me."
Despite the loss de Minaur will leave D.C. at No. 45 in the world. Afterwards he admitted he was a step slow in the match, but credits Zverev with being "too good" on the day.
"I came out and didn't start as well as I wanted to. I wanted to hold serve and put some pressure on his service games," de Minaur said. "I felt like I was on the back foot a lot. But that's tennis. I'm very happy with the week I've had and going to try and build on this."
This is Zverev’s ninth career title and he will remain at No. 3 in the ATP rankings.