Halle
Zverev overcomes brief ‘out-of-nowhere’ illness, Cobolli for Halle SF spot

Home favourite will play Medvedev, who downs Michelsen

June 20, 2025

Carmen Jaspersen/AFP via Getty Images

Alexander Zverev sinks Flavio Cobolli in straight sets on Friday at the Terra Wortmann Open.
By Andy West

Under the weather early, but into the Terra Wortmann Open semi-finals on time nonetheless.

Alexander Zverev endured a rough start to his quarter-final clash with Flavio Cobolli on Friday at the grass ATP 500 in Halle, before the home favourite returned to seal a 6-4, 7-6(6) victory. Zverev had to rush from the court for an impromptu toilet break due to illness at 1-0, 40/40 in the first set, but later completed a one-hour, 41-minute triumph at OWL Arena.

“I felt fine before the match, and then out of nowhere I felt really, really bad and felt ill,” explained Zverev. “I went to throw up, and then 15 minutes later I felt okay again. So I don’t know what it was. I’ve never experienced that before, to be honest. Hopefully I will be fine the next couple of hours, when the adrenalin settles. After that, I think it was a pretty good match.”

Zverev let out a burst of emotion after firing a big first serve, which Cobolli was unable to return, to clinch his win in the second-set tie-break. The second seed is now 21-8 in Halle, where he reached the championship match in 2016 and 2017, while has now become just the fifth player to reach five or more semi-finals at the event after former champions Roger Federer, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Philipp Kohlschreiber and Tommy Haas.

In a rematch of their Roland Garros third-round meeting just less than three weeks ago, Zverev earned another straight-sets victory against Cobolli with an impressive serving performance in Halle. The second seed won 81 per cent (46/57) of points behind his first serve, according to Infosys ATP Stats, while he also crucially saved all six break points he faced by rallying from 0/40 in both the second and fourth games of the match.

A finalist in Stuttgart last week, Zverev will now aim to earn back-to-back championship-match appearances on grass when he faces one of his oldest rivals in the semi-finals: Daniil Medvedev.

It All Adds Up

Medvedev earlier overcame Alex Michelsen 6-4, 6-3 to reach his third tour-level semi-final of the season. The 29-year-old, who is guaranteed to return to the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Rankings on Monday after spending six weeks as No. 11, leads Zverev 12-7 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series.

“I think it’s the guy I played the most in my career, so I’m looking forward to it,” said Zverev ahead of his first tour-level meeting with Medvedev since the 2024 Australian Open semi-finals. “A lot of things happened in the past 18 months. Definitely he’s one of the toughest opponents in my career. It’s going to be a great match and I’m really looking forward to facing him.”