MONTREAL, August 14, 2017
Alexander Zverev claimed his second ATP World Tour Masters 1000 trophy, winning the Coupe Rogers in Montréal on Sunday, adding to his maiden title in Rome earlier this year. The 20-year-old German defeated second seed Roger Federer 6-3, 6-4.
Zverev saved all of the three break points he faced, converting two of his own to seal victory in 68 minutes. The youngster became the first player outside the Big Four of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray to win multiple Masters 1000 titles in a season since David Nalbandian in 2007.
“Winning two Masters 1000 titles in the same year is something amazing… I played well winning Washington and here. It’s something amazing, back-to-back weeks. I feel great. I feel like I’m playing some of the best tennis of my life,” told Zverev, who is just the second active player other than the Big Four to win more than one Masters 1000 crown, joining Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
“I feel like I’m playing the right tennis, well enough tennis to be there… I don’t feel like things are going unnatural. I think everything is going pretty natural. Obviously winning the two Masters 1000 events, everybody would be proud of that, and nobody could expect it. But I’m happy that it happened.”
Federer suffers his first defeat in a final this year (5-1 record) and his first loss to a Top 10 player (9-1). The Swiss was looking to win a title in the Canadian city for the first time.
“It is a positive week in the end… The final was unexpected. But it’s keeping up with the good results of this year. Playing the final was a good thing. Of course, I’m disappointed with today. I thought I would do better. I wanted to fight a bit more and make the match a bit more tighter. I had opportunities. But Zverev played extremely well. He played well all week,” said Federer.
Herbert/Mahut Take Doubles Crown
Earlier in the day, Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut claimed their ninth title together, edging Rohan Bopanna and Ivan Dodig 6-4, 3-6, 10-6 in the doubles final. The encounter lasted one hour and 21 minutes.
The fifth seeds improved to 20-8 this season after one hour and 22 minutes, firing four aces and notching 88 per cent of first-serve points.
“It was a hard match against a really good team… We managed to win the first, they played really well in the second and we had a good level in the Match Tie-break,” Herbert told.
“We had four tough matches… After having a few months without winning too much, it’s good to come back in the [Emirates ATP Doubles] Race to London,” Mahut added.
New Attendance Record
As the tournament comes to a close, Tennis Canada announced a world record for attendance at a one-week tournament. In fact, a total of 216,097 fans were on-site throughout the tournament to attend matches between the best players in the world at Rogers Cup presented by National Bank.
“There was a tennis craze in our city in the last few weeks and it shows in our attendance numbers,” stated Eugène Lapierre, Tournament Director of Rogers Cup presented by National Bank. “There were compelling storylines throughout the tournament and the Montreal crowd once again demonstrated their love of tennis. It has been a while since we experienced such excitement for our sport.”
The previous record was set here in Montreal in 2011, with a total attendance of 213,760 spectators.
