Trending in tennis: Zverev and Fritz are officially back after wins

It was a busy week in the tennis world as both the men’s and women’s tours had 3 events going on this week. Ranking points and hardware were on the line as usual. Taylor Fritz and Alexander Zverev exercised recent demons with victories. Check below to see who is on the up and who needs a change of fortune.

TRENDING UP 

Alexander Zverev – The 26-year-old Zverev won the biggest title on offer this week as he won the ATP 500 event in his hometown of Hamburg. The result puts him right back in contention of qualifying for the Year End Championships. More importantly, this is his first title since 2021 and post-injury. He’s back.

Taylor Fritz – The top-ranked American had been in a rut of results in recent months. An early exit at Wimbledon did not help matters. However, the shift to hard-court tennis seems to be just what was needed. Fritz only had his serve broken once all week en route to the ATP 250 Atlanta Open title.

Taylor Fritz is among those trending in tennis this week

Elisabetta Cocciaretto – The 42nd-ranked Cocciaretto captured the first WTA title of her career in Lausanne as she defeated Clara Burel 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. She was 4-2 down in the deciding set, so she truly had to earn her way to this maiden title. With this result, she will climb to 30th in the rankings and maybe a seed at the US Open.

Alexei Popyrin – Any time you can beat a 3-time Grand Slam champion in an ATP final, you know you have done a job. That is exactly what happened for Popyrin who battled past a resurgent Stan Wawrinka 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4. His offensive game was powerful and explosive throughout as he simply outslugged the Swiss star. A proper day’s work for the Aussie.

Now onto the players that did not quite enjoy their weeks nearly as much.

TRENDING DOWN 

Daniel Evans – The 30th-ranked Brit blew match points in his first match in Atlanta as he lost to the first-time tour match winner Dominik Koepfer in 3 tight sets. He’s only won ONE tour-level match since Barcelona in April. That is rough viewing. He could own this section all to himself, to be honest.

Tomas Martin Etcheverry – Since making a surprise run to the Roland Garros Quarterfinals, the Argentine has not done much of a consequence. A 1st round win at Wimbledon is his only success since then. Throwing in his 1st round loss this week in Hamburg and he is 1-4 since that Cinderella run.

Donna Vekic – I could be a hypocrite for this because Vekic was trending up after making the Final in a Wimbledon tune-up at the beginning of this month. However, she was the No. 1 seed in Hamburg this week and was taken out in her opening match to a player outside the Top 150. If you can’t tell, I don’t like Jekyll and Hyde results.

That will do for negativity because I wanted to give an honorable mention to Trending Up this week to Marin Cilic. The big-hitting Croat has been out of action since an injury in the first week of this season way back in January.

He lost his opening match at Umag, but it’s always good having him back on tour. I foresee he will begin climbing back up the rankings sooner than later.

That’s it for trending in tennis this week! There are multiple tournaments again this week starting Monday, so the action never stops.