PARIS: German seed Alexander Zverev appeared cold and hot with his function but had sufficient artillery to shoot down Russian qualifier Roman Safiullin 7-6(4) 6-3 7-6(1) to get to the next round of the French Open on Wednesday.
The 182nd-ranked Russian moved toe-to-toe using Zverev from the baseline battle from the opening set before the German captured the critical break in the 11th game.
Serving for the group, Zverev dedicated two double-faults to give the benefit and needed another from the tie-breaker however he recovered to take the lead together with back-to-back pros.
Double flaws continued to frighten the 24-year-old German at the second group because he smashed his racquet in the court and endured a service break but he regained to shoot the group by winning five matches in a row.
Zverev, who served 15 aces against 10 double faults, outplayed Safiullin from the third-set tiebreaker to establish a conflict from the winner of their match between Serbians Laslo Djere along with Miomir Kecmanovic.