{"id":18803,"date":"2025-08-04T23:20:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T03:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/08\/04\/alexander-zverev-defeats-alexei-popilin-to-reach-toronto-semi-finals\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T23:20:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T03:20:31","slug":"alexander-zverev-defeats-alexei-popilin-to-reach-toronto-semi-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2025\/08\/04\/alexander-zverev-defeats-alexei-popilin-to-reach-toronto-semi-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev defeats Alexei Popilin to reach Toronto semi-finals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

TORONTO – Top-seeded Alexander Zverev met on Monday to beat Australia’s 6-7 (8), 6-4 and 6-3 No. 18 Alexei Popilin on Monday to reach the semi-finals of the National Bank Open.<\/p>\n

Zverev, the 2017 tournament champion, faces Russia’s No. 11 seed Karen Khachanov or US No. 26 Alex Michelsen.<\/p>\n

Ranked third, German Zverev has made it to the 75th ATP Tour semi-finals. He is looking for his 25th tournament title and is looking for an eighth ATP 1000 Masters Tournament.<\/p>\n

The other quarterfinals are on Tuesday. Second-seeded Taylor Fritz will face Russia’s No. 6 Andreil Brev, while fourth-placed Ben Shelton will meet Australia’s No. 9 Alex Deminaurus. Both semi-finals will take place on Wednesday, ahead of Thursday’s title match.<\/p>\n

Popilin took the first set after a long rally grazes the top of the net and falls for a victory point.<\/p>\n

Zverev responded by firing the ball straight away from the Sobeys Stadium with Frustration, but quickly reorganised to get 2-0 in the second set.<\/p>\n

Popilin grabbed his own break before holding the serve at 4-4. Zverev, who won the Canadian title in Montreal when he defeated childhood idol Roger Federer eight years ago, took a 5-4 lead and again smashed his opponent.<\/p>\n

Zverev, who was expelled in the quarterfinal stage of last year’s tournament, got another break to rise 2-0 in three sets before playing the match.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old, who lost to top-ranked Giannik Sinner in the final at the Australian Open this year and created the French open quarter, has improved 4-0 against Popilin, including a third round victory at the Parisian Games.<\/p>\n

Zverev won two tournaments with Clay this year, and sinner, no. Carlos Alcaraz from 2, Jack Draper from 5, No. 1. Novak Djokovic of 6 is the highest ranked player to compete on the field in Toronto after skipping all hard court events.<\/p>\n

Ranked 26th, Popilin, 25, won nine consecutive games in Canada.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO – Top-seeded Alexander Zverev met on Monday to beat Australia’s 6-7 (8), 6-4 and 6-3 No. 18 Alexei Popilin on Monday to reach the semi-finals of the National Bank Open. Zverev, the 2017 tournament champion, faces Russia’s No. 11 seed Karen Khachanov or US No. 26 Alex Michelsen. Ranked third, German Zverev has made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[289,5278,27,5279,197,1849,24,4473,290],"class_list":{"0":"post-18803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-alexander","9":"tag-alexei","10":"tag-defeats","11":"tag-popilin","12":"tag-reach","13":"tag-semifinals","14":"tag-tennis","15":"tag-toronto","16":"tag-zverev"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}