Goffin Cruises As Zverev Is Upset

Second seed David Goffin cruised to his fourth ATP World Tour semi-final of the season with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over eighth-seeded Donald Young at the Shenzhen Open on Friday, advancing in 64 minutes.

“I was moving really well. I served also really well from the start. I was really aggressive. And I finished really well,” Goffin said. “I’m really happy the way I played today.” 

Goffin set the tone early, breaking Young in the opening game of the match for what would be the first of five times on the day. The Belgian reached at least deuce in all but two of the American’s service games, winning 68 per cent of second-serve return points. 

The biggest moment of tension in the match came early in the second set, when Young broke back against Goffin to even the set at 2-2. But the right-hander won four of the next five games, breaking twice, to seal his spot in the semi-final. 

The World No. 12 inched closer to a breakthrough in 2017, as Goffin is in pursuit of his first title of the year. The first Belgian man to ever break into the Top 10 of the Emirates ATP Rankings — which he did in February — has reached two finals this season (Sofia l. Dimitrov, Rotterdam l. Tsonga), and can make it three Saturday should he defeat World No. 107 Henri Laaksonen.

Sixth seed Damir Dzumhur caused the upset of the tournament when he beat World No. 4 Alexander Zverev, 6-4, 7-5 in 90 minutes.

Despite falling behind a break in both sets, Dzumhur was undeterred. After the German led 2-0 in the opening set, he won six of the next eight games to gain the lead. In the second set, Dzumhur overcame a larger 1-4 deficit to win six of the next seven games and with it, the match. The 25 year old was opportunistic, breaking Zverev on four of his seven opportunities.

Dzumhur, who won last week in St. Petersburg, is in-form, having now won eight matches in a row, and 16 of his last 19 since reaching the Los Cabos semi-finals in August. The World No. 40 will reach a career-high in the Emirates ATP Rankings next week. 

Laaksonen ended the dream run of Chinese qualifier Zhizhen Zhang, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, to reach his first ATP World Tour semi-final in two hours and five minutes. It looked like the Swiss might be destined for heart-break for the second time this season — he lost to David Ferrer in the Bastad quarter-finals despite holding two match points — when Zhang earned break point at 1-1 in the third set, but Laaksonen recovered to break the next game and would not look back.

The 25 year old fought off a break point while up 3-1 in the deciding set and two deuce points at 4-2 before breaking his opponent to finish the match. Zhang was attempting to become only the second Chinese man to advance to an ATP World Tour semi-final (Bing Pan, 1995).

Fifth seed Alexandr Dolgopolov advanced to his third semi-final of 2017, 6-3, 4-6, 1-0 when Dudi Sela retired.

Second Seeds Escape In Deciding Tie-Break

Second-seeded Alexander Peya and Rajeev Ram overcame a second-set hiccup to defeat Max Mirnyi and Philipp Oswald, 6-4, 3-6, 10-3 in the only doubles match of the day. They will face either top-seeded Nikola Mektic and Nicholas Monroe or Andre Sa and Sela.