1:55 a.m. at Flushing Meadows
The clock read 1:55 a.m. when Alexander Zverev finally put Lorenzo Sonego away. Five sets. 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-5, 6-4. The top seed at this US Open lives to play another day, and not by much.
Sonego had him. Serving in the fourth set, Zverev stood two points from going out of a Grand Slam in the first round as the No. 1 seed. That has happened five times in the Open Era. John Newcombe in 1971. Stefan Edberg twice, at Roland-Garros and then in New York in 1990. Lleyton Hewitt in Melbourne in 2002 and at Wimbledon in 2003. Nobody has done it in more than two decades.
He held. Then he broke Sonego straight back, and the fourth set was gone.
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The Italian gambled and nearly cashed in
Sonego played the only way he could. Higher risk on every ball, more trips forward, down-the-line groundstrokes that either landed on the paint or sailed three feet wide. For two and a half sets the winners outnumbered the mistakes.
What broke him was the mileage. All-court tennis against a man who returns as well as Zverev does eventually costs you a service game, and it cost Sonego the one that mattered. An early break in the decider settled the rest.
The numbers behind the win are not the numbers of a favourite. Zverev converted five break points out of 22. He committed 39 unforced errors, barely fewer than Sonego’s 43. He arrived in New York off early exits in Toronto and Cincinnati, and nothing on Tuesday night suggested that has been fixed.
A draw with almost nobody left in it
The context helps him. Jannik Sinner withdrew before the tournament with a knee injury. Novak Djokovic went out in the first round to Mariano Navone on Sunday. Carlos Alcaraz is back after four and a half months away with a wrist problem, and nobody knows what his body does over seven best-of-five matches.
Outside those two, Daniil Medvedev is the only man left in the field with a Grand Slam singles title to his name. Zverev won Roland-Garros this year in conditions not far off these, and reached the Wimbledon final. Alcaraz sits on the other half of the draw.
The road is open. Tuesday night showed how uneven it might get.
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