539 Matches Later, Zverevs To Play Each Other In Washington
539 Matches Later, Zverevs To Play Each Other In Washington
Mischa Zverev knew something was up. His younger brother, Alexander Zverev, said to him, “Check out the draw.”
“Why,” Mischa said.
“Check it out,” Sascha said.
Sascha had seen what ATP World Tour fans circled when the Citi Open draw was released: The possibility of the Zverev brothers playing each other in a tour-level match for the first time. And it was a good possibility: Each just needed to win a match.
The brothers batted away any hype, leaning on clichés. Mischa Zverev: “You never know. You don’t want to look too far ahead in the tournament.”
Sascha Zverev: “We don’t have easy opponents.”
But at last, after a combined 539 main draw matches between the two, the Zverev brothers will meet in a tour-level contest. Sascha finished off Malek Jaziri of Tunisia on Wednesday evening, winning the second set of their rain-postponed match to advance 6-2, 6-1. Earlier in the day, Mischa beat American wild card Tim Smyczek 6-2, 7-6(6).
“I think it’s going to be an interesting day,” Mischa said.
“We’re definitely excited,” Sascha said.
The two have played twice before but in qualifying matches, and Mischa, who is nine years older than Sascha, won both of them (2012 Dallas, 2014 Houston).
“One is when I was 14 years old, so that doesn’t really count,” Sascha said, “and the other time when I was 15 and a half. It was a very, very long match… and at some point, because I was quite skinny still and not very fit, I started cramping in the third set, 3-2, so I retired.”
Sascha is 21 now, though, the defending champion at the Citi Open and the No. 3 player in the ATP Rankings. His older brother isn’t too shabby, either, as the 15th seed in Washington and at No. 43 in the ATP Rankings.
“It’s nice because we’re finally at a point where, we’re at a big tournament, we both play decent tennis,” Mischa Zverev said. “I think it’s a win-win situation because it means both of my parents did a good job. They raised decent tennis players, and it’s going to be a win-win no matter what.”