Alexander Zverev will be hoping to put the perfect seal on another encouraging week in his comeback from injury at the ATP Hamburg Open, the tournament where he first made his name with a run to the semifinals as a teenager. Standing in his way is clay-court specialist Laslo Djere. As ever, we here at LWOT will be offering our prediction for the final, as well as Stan Wawrinka’s clash in Umag with Alexei Popyrin, but who will come out on top in northern Germany?
ATP Hamburg Final Prediction
Alexander Zverev vs Laslo Djere
Head-to-head: Zverev 2-0 Djere
Alexander Zverev has had to come through a handful of testing moments so far this week in Hamburg, but moments is the crucial word. The German has not faced much in the way of sustained in pressure in beating Alex Molcan (6-3 6-0), Maximilian Marterer (6-3 7-5), Luca Van Assche (6-3 6-4) and Arthur Fils (6-2 6-4). Laslo Djere is probably a better clay-courter than any of them and is certainly more experienced, but the Serbian is facing an uphill battle.
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He has, however, impressed in his own right so far at the ATP Hamburg. He opened his campaign in Germany with a 7-6 6-3 win over the sixth seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry and backed that up by beating Guido Pella 6-2 3-6 6-3 to reach his fourth tour-level quarterfinal of 2023. A composed Djere then got the better of Lorenzo Musetti in straight sets to set up a semifinal clash with Zhang Zhizhen, which he won 6-3 6-2. A very solid body of work then.
The problem for Djere is that he will not be able to hit through Zverev and is also very unlikely to succeed in grinding the German down in long baseline exchanges. Their head-to-head reflects that, with Zverev having won all five sets they have played, including in relatively similar conditions at Roland Garros in 2021. Djere is effectively relying on Zverev beating himself and whilst that is hardly unheard of, the German’s level so far this week suggest that he not Djere will be the man to lift the title.
Prediction: Zverev in 2
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