On Thursday, June 1, 22nd seed Alexander Zverev defeated Alex Molcan 6-4, 6-2, and 6-1 in a French Open second-round match. The German player, who is 26 years old and has been in mediocre form leading up to the tournament, gave a clinical performance.
Zverev will confront twelfth seed Frances Tiafoe of the US in the third round on Saturday. The German will start as the favorite on Saturday as well, holding a head-to-head advantage of 6-1. The German, who was unfortunate to resign hurt in last year’s elimination round against Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros, thoroughly searched in extraordinary touch against the Slovak.
In light of this, let us examine two aspects of the match that stood out :
1. In the first set, Zverev dominated from the forecourt:
In the first set, Zverev frequently put pressure on Molcan from the forecourt and midcourt. The German played some nice moves to set up points and then hit volleys to win them. Zverev’s formidable backhand enabled him to take control of the majority of the rallies, despite Molcan’s forehand crosscourt with a lot of topspin.
In the very first game of the match, the German broke the Slovak and got off to a flying start. He then, at that point, held his effectively go 2-0 up and kept up with the lead until the end of the set. The two players played a couple of drop shots too, yet Zverez was the more decisive player generally.
2. The German remained on the benchmark all the more frequently to obliterate Molcan in the last two sets :
From the second set on, the Slovak used angled shots to move the German from side to side. He also managed to get by Zverev a few times while he was rushing the net. This incited Zverev to remain on the pattern all the more frequently as the subsequent set advanced. After that, from the baseline, he began to dominate rallies and sped through the set, breaking the Slovak twice.
The pattern continued in the third set, as the Slovak struggled to satisfy the German from the baseline and made an increasing number of unforced errors. He broke Molcan two times in the third set also to enroll a simple triumph. In the match, Zverev managed to win 72% of the points on his second serve, while Molcan only won 40%.