MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Before Thursday, the last time Alexander Zverev reached a Miami Open semifinal was in 2018, when the tournament was at the Crandon Park Tennis Center on Key Biscayne and he was 20.

That year, the 6-6 Zverev advanced to the final and lost in the championship to 6-10 John Isner — two giant tennis players on a giant stage.

On Thursday, in the same tournament but at a different venue, world No. 5 Zverev reached the Miami Open semifinal again, this time at Hard Rock Stadium. Zverev, the tournament’s No. 4 seed from Germany, defeated unseeded Fabian Marozsan of Hungary 6-3, 7-5 in 1 hour, 37 minutes.

Marozsan, also tall at 6-4 and a slender 165 pounds compared to Zverev’s 198, came into the Miami Open ranked 57th but will rise to the top 40 on Monday after playing in his third ATP Tour quarterfinal. His 14-4 record in ATP Masters 1000 events, such as Miami, has impressed his ATP Tour competitors. The 24-year-old, playing in his first Miami Open, defeated No. 6 seed Holger Rune earlier this week for the third top-10 win of his career.

“Yeah, I mean if he continues playing like that,” Zverev said of Marozsan, “he’s going to rise up the rankings very quickly and he’s going to be one of those guys himself. You know, he always rushes us good players.

“All top players, when they’re in control, they feel like they can, you know, 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. Yeah, he’s an unbelievable player.”

Marozsan seemed satisfied with his week, and said that Zverev told him after the match that if he continues “to play like this, which is very difficult and not easy to play on the highest level, I can be in the top 10 in the next few years maybe. I don’t know. This is still my first year on the ATP Tour. I just want to stay here and do more great results and play him again.

“He said, ‘Congrats Fabi, it was an amazing tournament for you.' ’’

Zverev, who had a career-high ranking of No. 2 in June 2022, will meet in a Friday semifinal the winner of Thursday night’s match featuring second-ranked and No. 1 seed Carlos Alcaraz of Spain and 12th-ranked Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria.

“I love Miami,’’ Zverev said. “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 are only those left and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

©2024 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.