Zverev Ends Great Value Day For Fans

Alexander Zverev closed out 10 hours of play on Tuesday at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters with around 200 fans clustered around Court Rainier III wrapped in warm jackets or with towels and rugs over their legs.

Under the floodlights, well after the day-high temperature of 22°C had plummeted, Zverev found his rhythm towards the end of the second set in a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 second-round victory over Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller that ended at 8:46 p.m. local time.

All four matches scheduled on the Monte-Carlo Country Club’s main show court, beginning at 11 a.m., went to three sets on Tuesday, including victories for Dominic Thiem (saved 1 M.P. vs. Rublev), Grigor Dimitrov (d. Herbert), Mischa Zverev (d. Pouille).

Concentration lapses hindered Zverev in the first set, but service breaks in the first and ninth games of the second set gave the German, who turns 21 on Friday, the momentum. From a 4-3 advantage in the second set, third seed Zverev won five straight games to lead 3-0 in the decider against Muller, who hit his fourth double fault to end the two-hour, three-minute match.

Zverev, who won 34 of his 41 first-service points (83 per cent) to improve to a 15-6 match record on the year, will now prepare for a meeting on Thursday against No. 13 seed Fabio Fognini of Italy or Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff.

Fognini, who reached the 2013 Monte-Carlo semi-finals (l. to Djokovic), recovered from a 2-5 deficit in the second set to beat qualifier Ilya Ivashka of Belarus 6-4, 7-5 for his 299th match win. The Italian now challenges Struff, a 6-3, 6-2 victor over Yuichi Sugita of Japan.