Melbourne: A couple of stories unfolded simultaneously at opposite ends of Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday.The heat was physical, a wall that pressed in from every corner, but the roof, drawn over the storied arena, eased the worst of the oppressive conditions. Beneath it, world No. 3 Alexander Zverev faced the 20-year-old American Huyen Tien, whose first name is drawn from her mother’s profession.Huyen Tien is a maths teacher, and the reference is one her son lives up to in full, quite possibly the fastest learner in tennis.
In the Australian Open quarterfinals, faced with a virtual serve bot, the learning wasn’t quite fast enough. The German, a three-time Melbourne finalist, powered into the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-1, 7-6 (3) victory. He blasted 24 aces, nine of them in the fourth set, and was flawless under pressure, landing first serves on all three break points he faced and saving each one.The 28-year-old, who finished the 2025 season with a 57-25 win-loss record, with just the one title in Munich on clay, has been coming into his own in Melbourne.Zverev acknowledged that he might have to play a leaner schedule to give himself the best chance.“Last year my schedule was crazy, especially in the beginning of the year,” he said. “I love South America, I love the countries, I love the experience of being there,” he said of the events in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Acapulco—the first an ATP 250 and the other two 500s—“but it was probably not a smart decision to go to Buenos Aires, especially after the run to the finals here.”“That’s when my issues started. I was mentally tired, and if you are mentally tired, your injuries start as well,” Zverev said. “My schedule looks very different this year after the Australian Open. So it’s a learning process. It’s also learning that your body is maybe getting a bit older.”“I think being pain-free is the biggest change that I’ve had in the last 12 months,” he said. “When you are feeling like you can’t do every single move freely, it’s just tiring mentally. You maybe don’t go for your shots as much. You don’t rely on your body as much.”Zverev said, “I worked on my game. I worked on my first shots after the serve, my first forehand after the serve, serve and volleying as well. If those things work for me, then I think success will come.”Tien underlined that the tide turned after the third set.“He was pretty much in a position to serve out the second-set breaker, and I was kind of able to steal that set. Maybe I was a bit happy I was able to steal that, and I had a little bit of a drop-off,” Tien said. “I played kind of a loose game to get broken, and then he was serving great obviously, so he was holding pretty quickly. The set kind of slipped through my fingers very fast.”In Friday’s last-four clash, Zverev will play world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, who put out the sixth-seeded home hope Alex de Minaur 7-5, 6-2, 6-1 to make his first semifinal at Melbourne Park.
