Round 1: No. 5 Alexander Zverev (GER) vs. Kevin Anderson (RSA)
Second match in Arthur Ashe Stadium (Day Session)
- Fifth-seeded Alexander Zverev has drawn one of the most difficult first-round matchups in the men’s singles draw at the 2020 US Open. He will square off with 2017 runner-up and former world No. 5 Kevin Anderson, who is now ranked 117 in the world as he makes his recovery from two knee surgeries—one last September, which ruled him out of the 2019 US Open, and the second this February.
- The head-to-head strongly favors Zverev, who has won all five of his encounters with the 34-year-old Johannesburg native. Zverev needed three sets to win the pair’s first two matchups in 2015 (Washington, D.C.) and 2017 (Rome), and three of their five previous matchups have gone to a deciding set.
- Zverev has split 12 decisions (6-6) thus far in 2020, while Anderson has also played .500 tennis through his eight matches (4-4). Anderson, one of five former US Open finalists in the men’s singles draw, defeated Kyle Edmund at the Western and Southern Open before falling to Stefanos Tsitsipas in Round 2. Zverev was defeated by Andy Murray in his first match last week.
- Though Zverev’s 2020 record isn’t what he’d like it to be, he did play magnificently at the Australian Open, where he reached his first Grand Slam semifinal in his 19th career appearance at a major. The German defeated Stan Wawrinka in the quarterfinals before falling to Dominic Thiem in four sets in the semifinals. Since then, he has added former world No. 3 David Ferrer to his coaching team.
- The second serve will be a key for Zverev against Anderson, as the German has been plagued by double faults over the last year and a half. The world No. 7 says he worked extremely hard on the shot during quarantine, but he still struggled mightily with it in his loss to Murray at the Western and Southern Open. “This is the thing I was working on for the past six months,” he said last week. “During the match, it was OK, but in important moments I think it went again.”
