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Bring Rafa back. Bring Roger back. Hey, bring Novak back. Good luck to Alexander Zverev but, in the face of evidence of a miserable but strangely compelling semi-final, if he were to win this star-stripped 2020 US Open on Sunday, he would surely come with the dreaded asterisk.
The German is in the final of a grand slam after years of unfulfilled promise, coming out two sets down for the first time to beat 29-year-old Spaniard Pablo Carreño Busta, who is ranked 27th in the world but placed 20th by His venerable compatriot and Nadal’s eternal Swiss rival topped a long list of absentees.
He also disappeared after his fourth-round collapse in his match against Carreño Busta, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, watching from Rome, where he will warm up for the French Open.
Instead, it’s Zverev through a first US Open final and a date with world number 3 Dominic Thiem, who won 6-2, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (5) over Daniil Medvedev in the second and most direct semifinal on Friday. -final.
If Arthur Ashe Stadium, tennis’s largest stadium, were close to capacity, 23,500 possibly well-oiled New Yorkers would have been clamoring for their money back after seeing 23 service outages and a total of 100 failed errors. forced for three hours and more. 22 minutes. Zverev hit 57 of those, along with 24 aces among 71 earned winners, to win 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.
They were like two strangers kicked out of a party on the wrong side of town. Neither knew the way home.
“Minus two sets to love, I couldn’t believe it,” Zverev said on the court. “I was supposed to be the favorite. He knew he had to think of better tennis. But I’m in my first Grand Slam final and that’s all that matters. Still one to go for me. He wasn’t getting a lot of points with the second serve and had to be more aggressive. I can’t wait for the final.
“At 3-6, 0-5, I was looking at the scoreboard, I thought I had to do something. I am lucky to have finished. I feel good, I’ve been working with Jez Green [Andy Murray’s former conditioner] over the last few years and he’s done a good job with me. “
It got better as they warmed up. But so does sour milk when whipped into cheese. He was a strong candidate for the bust of the fortnight.
It says a lot that Carreño Busta was the highest ranked player Zverev had faced in the tournament. The coronavirus, a lot of rejections and a couple of surprises had shattered the tie at the level of an ATP 500, maybe a mid-level Masters, and they played it.
The first exchanges were short, nervous and difficult to see. They were both as tight as a drum. Carreño Busta broke Zverev’s great and wayward serve twice, returned a break and held on to make a set-up after 40 minutes.
Moving as if someone had filled his shoes with glue, Zverev served a serve in the first game of the second set in the center of the area on the wrong side of the court. “This is a horror show,” said Tim Henman (not the only one to have chosen the fifth seed to win), as Carreño Busta assaulted the ill-fated Zverev and did two sets in an hour and 25 minutes.
Zverev didn’t exactly back down in the third, but his vulnerable second serve rose from 16% in the second set to 78, with no double faults and just three unforced errors, as he struggled hard to stay in the fight. Now it was Carreño Busta’s turn to sweat.
Zverev took a break early in the fourth and threw it with the worst double fault of … well, the season, the ball dribbled over the net into the wrong area again.
He did some big serves and forehand to level out to a set each after two hours, though he had to use an 87 mph rib crunch in the ninth game that actually landed on the net, and they went to a shootout of one set. .
It seemed inconceivable that they didn’t pick up their game with the prize in sight. They did it. A bit. Zverev broke early and held on. Carreño Busta saved a match point at 3-5, returned it straight, and then threw a loose backhand. It was as prosaic as that. The tension was long gone. For most of the match, unpredictability was all that this forgettable semifinal had going for it. In the end, they couldn’t even get it right.
