Daniel Altmaier has been eliminated from the ATP tournament in Munich after losing to fellow German Alexander Zverev in the Round of 16. The 26-year-old from Kempen fell to the world No. 3 on Wednesday in straight sets, 3-6, 2-6, in a match that lasted one hour and 19 minutes.
Altmaier had reached this stage after a hard-fought win over Chun-hsin Tseng of Taiwan, defeating him in two close tiebreak sets, 7-6, 7-6. However, against top seed Zverev, he was unable to maintain that momentum.
Zverev, from Hamburg, did not appear as dominant as he had in his opening match against France’s Alexandre Müller, which he won comfortably 6-4, 6-1. The third-ranked player struggled at times due to unforced errors—13 of them in the first set alone—which allowed Altmaier to stay competitive early on. Nonetheless, Zverev took control after an early break to go up 3-1 and closed out the first set without much trouble.
Altmaier, ranked 68th in the world, had previously defeated Zverev in their last meeting in February 2024 during the first round in Acapulco. But this time, the outcome was different. He committed too many unforced errors and failed to capitalize on Zverev’s shaky moments.
In the second set, Altmaier responded to an early break by leveling the score at 1-1. However, Zverev broke again to go up 3-2 and never looked back. He sealed the match on his fourth match point, advancing to the quarterfinals.
With Altmaier’s loss, all players from North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) have now been knocked out of the Munich tournament. On Tuesday, Jan-Lennard Struff of Warstein was defeated decisively by fifth seed Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina, losing 0-6, 2-6.
Zverev continues his campaign in Munich, though his performance suggests there’s still room for improvement as he moves into the later rounds.
