Two teenagers each reached the semi-finals of tournaments at the weekend, crashing parties that have been restricted to much older crowds in recent years.
One of them, Alexander Zverev, 17, was playing in the ATP 500-level tournament on the clay of his hometown, Hamburg, Germany. The other, Ana Konjuh, 16, was competing on hard courts at a WTA International-level event in Istanbul.
Zverev’s accomplishment was the more stunning of the two: Teenage success stories have been far scarcer in the men’s game. Although Zverev lost to the top seed, David Ferrer, 6-0, 6-1 in his semi-final on Saturday, he hit several milestones in his four victories in the main draw of the tournament.
Photo: EPA
Zverev was the first 17-year-old to beat a top-20 player — No. 19 Mikhail Youzhny, whom he faced in the second round — since Richard Gasquet in 2004 and the first to reach an ATP semi-final at that age since Marin Cilic in 2006. Among active players, only the former No. 1s Rafael Nadal and Lleyton Hewitt reached ATP semi-finals at a younger age.
Zverev, a top-ranked junior who won the boys’ title at the Australian Open in January, has found success at the professional level suddenly. He was ranked outside the top 800 at the beginning of this year and 665th at the beginning of the month. However, after winning a tournament in Braunschweig, Germany, one of the largest on the Challenger circuit, and reaching the semi-finals in Hamburg, he will have risen more than 500 spots in three weeks, to No. 160.
Zverev has joked that he was “born with a tennis racket in my hands.”
Photo: EPA
His parents, Alexander and Irina, were successful tennis players for the Soviet Union, and his brother Mischa, 26, reached the top 50 in 2009.
Alexander Zverev was already beating his older brother in some practice games three years ago, when he was 14.
“I act like I’m angry, but I’m very proud of him and happy,” Mischa Zverev said of those losses.
Mischa Zverev gave his brother, nicknamed Sascha, advice before each match in Hamburg, having previously faced all the opponents Alexander Zverev faced there.
The increasing physicality of tennis has often been cited as the reason young players have not been able to break through as frequently in recent years, and Zverev is still growing comfortable with his long, growing limbs. And he has managed to succeed before reaching full physical maturity.
“Well, maybe I just proved those people wrong,” he said by telephone from Hamburg after his loss on Saturday. “I don’t know. I tried to prove them wrong. The game got so much more physical, and I think the game got so much better than it was 20 years ago. That I got through to the semi-finals in this tournament, this home tournament for me, I’m just really, really thankful and really happy.”
The German news media, eager for a Grand Slam champion, has embraced Zverev, with one headline calling him “the next Boris Becker.”
Zverev said that comparison was “a little too big at the moment,” adding that he would be happy with a career anywhere near as successful as Becker’s.
“German tennis definitely went through some hard times, so I would love to make German people dream again,” he said.
Konjuh, speaking by telephone from Istanbul after losing in the semi-finals to 24th-ranked Roberta Vinci, also described dreams of being No. 1 and winning Grand Slam titles. She had time this year to reflect on those goals while recovering from a minor operation on her right elbow that forced her off the tour for months.
“I figured it’s better to get it over with at 16 rather than 21, and I just decided to do it,” she said, a philosophy that might also apply to her recent victories.
Like Zverev, Konjuh, a Croatian, has had significant junior success, winning last year at the Australian Open and the US Open. With little left to accomplish at that level, she turned her attention to the professional ranks. She acknowledged that the transition to competing against women who are sometimes twice her age had been difficult at times.
“Yeah,” she said, giggling. “They can be my mom.”
Wozniacki was to tackle Vinci for the Istanbul title yesterday after beating Kristina Mladenovic 6-2, 6-3, while second-seeded Italian Vinci brushed aside Konjuh 6-4, 6-2.
“The conditions were difficult out there today with the wind, so it made everything a little harder,” Wozniacki said of her clash with Mladenovic. “I just tried to stay focused and play my best tennis and I’m glad it worked out.”
Vinci leads Wozniacki 2-1 in head-to-head meetings, including beating the Dane when she was ranked No. 1 in 2011 and also winning their only encounter this year.
Spain’s Ferrer dismissed Zverev in just 56 minutes to advance to his 44th tour-level final where he is to face Leonardo Mayer of Argentina.
World No. 46 Mayer defeated seventh-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany, 7-5, 6-4.
Additional reporting by AFP
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