By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday Octber 25, 2020
Alexander Zverev ran the table at Cologne from start to finish.
The 23-year-old German won back-to-back titles on home soil, topping off his second title run with a convincing display of power tennis to take down Diego Schwartzman 6-2, 6-1 on Sunday.
The victory marks the third time that Zverev has won back-to-back titles on tour, and he claims his 13th title overall.
“It’s getting better,” said Zverev, who thanked his team on court after his triumph. “I think we are going to be on top of the game very soon. Without you guys, it’s not possible.”
Winning matches against Zverev over the last two weeks didn’t seem possible for his opponents.
Zverev, has gone 8-0 since the beginning of last week in Cologne, and he dropped just 9 games in his two Cologne finals; last week he stopped Felix Auger-Aliassime, 6-3, 6-3.
This week the German struggled in the early rounds as he needed three sets to defeat John Millman in his first match (second round) and Adrian Mannarino in the quarterfinals.
But Zverev ended up winning his last five sets of the tournament and finished by playing his best tennis against Schwartzman, who really couldn’t offer much resistance against the German.
Zverev broke open the match from 2-2 in the opening set and only dropped one of the final 11 games.
Schwartzman had game points to hold for 3-4 in the opener, but Zverev stayed on the attack and eventually converted on Schwartzman’s fourth double-fault of the set.
He ripped his sixth ace of the match to close out the first set and never looked back.
The World No.7 dropped just two points on serve in the second set and won nine of ten second serve return points to run away to victory in 71 minutes.