MIAMI (AFP) – Germany's Alexander Zverev held off rising Hungarian Fabian Marozsan to book a place in the semi-finals of the ATP Miami Open with a 6-3, 7-5 win on Thursday.
World number five Zverev, who reached the Miami final in 2018, will play the winner of Thursday's other quarter-final between top seed Carlos Alcaraz and Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov.
Marozsan, ranked 57th but heading into the top 40 having claimed two top-10 victories in this tournament with wins over Holger Rune and Alex de Minaur, struggled to cope with Zverev's big serve in the opening set.
There was little to choose between the pair in the second set with the Hungarian keeping the pressure on Zverev.
But Marozsan missed some crucial points late in the set when going to the net and in the end was broken with his final service game.
Zverev was delighted to have the chance to return to the final.
"I mean, I love Miami, I always said that, obviously I'm happy to be back at these kind of late stages of these tournaments, playing the best players in the world. I think there's only those left and I'm looking forward to the challenge," he said.
The German was full of praise for his opponent, predicting he will continue to climb higher in the rankings.
"If he continues playing like that, he's going to rise up the rankings very quickly and he's going to be one of those guys himself," he said.
"He always rushes us good players. All the top players, when they're in control, they feel like they can manage the match, manipulate the match a little bit in their own favor and against him that's not possible.
"So I think that's why he has such a great top-10 record. He's an unbelievable player."