Alexander Zverev reached the Shanghai Masters semifinals with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Alex de Minaur on Thursday, October 15. The scoreline was tidy. The route through the pressure points explains more about how he earned it.
Zverev saved all five break points he faced during the 78-minute quarterfinal. Three came in the opening set, after he had broken for a 3-2 lead. He protected that advantage and served out the set without surrendering it.
The second set brought another test at 3-3. Zverev held after facing two break points, then broke de Minaur in the following game. Those consecutive games changed the immediate question from whether the Australian could move ahead to whether he could stay in the match.
Zverev finished with 10 aces and won 35 of 44 points behind his first serve, an 80 percent success rate. Field Level Media also recorded a 24-17 edge in winners. His ability to end points mattered against an opponent whose speed can make routine attacking shots insufficient.
The win improved Zverev’s season record to 62-14 and put him into Shanghai’s final four for the first time since 2019. This is his third semifinal appearance at the event.
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina is next. The Spaniard advanced when Arthur Gea retired injured with Davidovich Fokina leading 4-1 in the opening set. Their paths through Thursday were very different: one quarterfinal demanded repeated escapes on serve, while the other ended before a set was complete.
For Zverev, the next challenge is to reproduce that combination of serving efficiency and composure. Thursday supplied a strong example of both, without requiring the match to become a long physical contest.
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