Francisco Cerundolo battles past Alexander Zverev in Buenos Aires for biggest win of career

Francisco Cerundolo has pulled off the biggest win of his career, defeating No. 2-ranked Alexander Zverev, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, in the quarterfinals of his hometown event in Buenos Aires on Friday night.

His previous-best career win by ranking came against a No. 3-ranked Casper Ruud at another clay-court event, Barcelona, in 2023.

“I’m very happy—it’s probably the best win of my career in terms of ranking,” Cerundolo said. “He’s No. 2 in the world, playing incredible tennis, so, I mean, to be able to beat him here in Buenos Aires with my home crowd, my family, my people and my friends, it’s amazing.

“It’s probably one of the best feelings I’ve ever had.”

In a match that started late due to rain, and was also halted late in the second set due to rain, Zverev seemed headed for a routine victory serving up a set and a break at 6-3, 2-1 and 40-15. But the match turned from there as Cerundolo won the next four games in a row—and 11 of the last 14 games of the match—to run away with it.

All of that despite some difficult playing conditions.

“It was really tough to play today,” he said. “A lot of wind at the beginning of the match, so I couldn’t play comfortably. You had to put shots in the middle and not take too much risk because it was really tough to hit the ball, and I think after that I tried to be more calm and more patient, because I knew that it was going to be a tough match.

“The first two sets we didn’t play well, both of us, but I was the one who was able to keep going after all those bad errors.

"I think I did pretty well in the third.”

Cerundolo finished the match with 25 winners to 31 unforced errors, including a 21-to-17 ratio on his forehand side. Zverev, meanwhile, had 16 winners to 43 unforced errors, struggling with his groundstrokes in particular (9-23 on the forehand and 2-17 on the backhand).

Cerundolo is now two wins away from winning his home tournament for the first time. His best previous result here was reaching the final in 2021, where he finished runner-up to Diego Schwartzman.

Standing between him and the 2025 final here will be Spain's Pedro Martinez, who actually sent Schwartzman into retirement this week, beating him in the second round in his last career match.

Martinez got a quarterfinal walkover on Friday from Lorenzo Musetti, who pulled out of the tournament due to a leg injury.

Cerundolo and Martinez are tied 1-1 in their head-to-head series, Cerundolo winning on the grass of Queen's Club in 2022, 6-3, 6-2, but Martinez winning on clay in Hamburg last summer, 1-6, 6-1, 6-4.