Top seed German star Alexander Zverev survived the night after a five-set thriller, securing his spot in the U.S. Open. Zverev, 29, who had won the first-round match that lasted five sets on Wednesday, September 2, was again thrown into an uphill task before he cruised through a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (3/7), 6-3 win over French rival Quentin Halys on Friday, September 4.
"The performance was quite poor to be honest, but I won, that's the most important thing," Zverev said in a postgame on-court interview. "Another four-and-a-half hours, 2:15 am, that's what I go to the gym for," he added, before thanking die-hard fans who remained in the stadium until the end of the match. "The couple thousand people who stayed made up for the 15,000 that left," he said.
The match lasted for about 4 hours and 33 minutes and turned out to be another marathon task for Zverev on the Arthur Ashe Stadium show court. Zverev appeared in complete control against Halys early on, capitalizing on the only break of the first set to go 5-4 before holding serve to win the first set.
But a double fault from Zverev handed Halys two set points at 15-40, which the Frenchman took advantage of in an aggressive play to win the second set. Zverev mounted a comeback from a 4-1 deficit in the third set to level at 4-4. Halys saved three break points to sneak into a 5-4 lead, and the rest of the set went on serve until the tiebreak, where Zverev soon took control, racing into a 5-1 lead before clinching the set. Yet the fourth set also ended in a tiebreak, this time with Halys in control to level the match and send it to a decider. Halys cracked first in the fifth set, sending a forehand wide to hand Zverev a crucial break. Zverev then held twice to take a 5-3 lead and then broke a tiring Halys to claim the triumph.