Zverev begins grass season in Halle with three-set win

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexander-zverev/z355/overview'Alexander Zverev/a navigated through a tricky opening-round test Tuesday at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/halle/500/overview'Terra Wortmann Open/a, where the second-seeded German defeated countryman a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/oscar-otte/o449/overview'Oscar Otte/a 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4./p

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Aiming to go one step further than his two finalist appearances in Halle (2016, 2017), Zverev stayed patient to outlast Otte in baseline exchanges and capitalised in pressure moments with first-strike tennis to advance./p

p"A week ago, I was playing on clay still basically. He made it very tough for me, no rhythm at all," Zverev said in his on-court interview. "That's how grass-court tennis is sometimes and I'm just happy with the win. He did make it extremely difficult for me, so credit to him. I'm obviously happy that I won and hopefully it's going to be a level above in the next match."/p/br

div class="riddle2-wrapper" data-rid-id="9FpC4D9w" data-auto-scroll="true" data-is-fixed-height-enabled="false" data-bg="#fff" data-fg="#00205b" style="margin:0 auto; max-width:100%; width:640px;" script src="https://www.riddle.com/embed/build-embedjs/embedV2.js"/scriptiframe src="https://www.riddle.com/embed/a/9FpC4D9w?lazyImages=falsestaticHeight=false" allow="autoplay" referrerpolicy="strict-origin"section data-block="SingleChoice"h3Who has won the most singles titles at the cinch Championships, held at Queen#039;s Club, with five?/h3ullia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/john-mcenroe/m047/overview'John McEnroe/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lleyton-hewitt/h432/overview'Lleyton Hewitt/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andy-murray/mc10/overview'Andy Murray/a/li/ul/sectionsection data-block="SingleChoice"h3Who has won the most titles at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/halle/500/overview'Terra Wortmann Open/a, held in Halle, with 10?/h3ullia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/michael-stich/s351/overview'Michael Stich/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/roger-federer/f324/overview'Roger Federer/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/tommy-haas/h355/overview'Tommy Haas/a/li/ul/sectionsection data-block="SingleChoice"h3a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/roger-federer/f324/overview'Roger Federer/a has won the most grass-court titles on record. How many ???? did he lift on the surface?/h3ulli14/lili19/lili22/li/ul/sectionsection data-block="SingleChoice"h3Which active players have won the most grass-court titles with eight each?/h3ullia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andy-murray/mc10/overview'Andy Murray/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/rafael-nadal/n409/overview'Rafael Nadal/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/rafael-nadal/n409/overview'Rafael Nadal/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andy-murray/mc10/overview'Andy Murray/a/li/ul/sectionsection data-block="SingleChoice"h3Which active player has the highest winning percentage on grass according to Infosys ATP Stats?/h3ullia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andy-murray/mc10/overview'Andy Murray/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jannik-sinner/s0ag/overview'Jannik Sinner/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a/li/ul/section/iframe/div

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The qualifier Otte routinely presented challenges to Zverev, often serve-and-volleying and absorbing the World No. 4's firepower with off-pace slice. But the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/roland-garros/520/overview'Roland Garros/a finalist stuck with his heavy hitting, crushing 54 winners to his 40 unforced errors, according to Infosys ATP Stats, to win in two hours, 17 minutes under the OWL Arena roof./p

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Zverev improved to 2-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Otte, who has troubled the 22-time tour-level titlist in both of their meetings. Otte led Zverev two-sets-to-love in the first round of a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/roland-garros/520/overview'Roland Garros/a in 2021 before the two-time a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a champion roared back to win and later reach the semi-finals./p

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The Rome champion, who is 35-10 on the season, next looks to extend his perfect 3-0 record against Italian a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lorenzo-sonego/su87/overview'Lorenzo Sonego/a./p

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Otte, No. 474 in the PIF ATP Rankings, was competing in his first tour-level event since a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a last year. The 30-year-old revealed on Instagram in August 2023 that a knee injury suffered at the grass-court major required him to undergo surgery./p

p[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p