Zverev Wins Second Red Bull Bassline Title
World number three tennis player Alexander Zverev secured his second Red Bull BassLine title in a row after a memorable night at the Vienna Stadthalle where freestyle player Stefan Bojic and BMX legend Matthias Dandois also entertained the crowd.
At BassLine, six players compete in two groups of three in a fun tie-break format with the best two athletes placed in two groups as group leaders according to their world ranking position then fans vote using interactive colour bands which players will face them in each group.
Within the assigned group, each player plays against each other - a coin toss deciding which player begins to serve - and whoever gets five points first wins the set in this fast-paced round-robin best-of-three format.
There is no umpire, while there are player interviews and a DJ playing music between points along with chat from experts in the athletes' zone.
There is also electronic line calling, while fans can see if a player's pulse is racing via heart monitors and interactive data shown to viewers.
World number two Carlos Alcaraz won the first 2021 title in Vienna as a largely unknown player with Russian Karen Khachanov winning the 2022 event and Zverev the 2023 title after Russian Andrey Rublev defeated Casper Ruud to claim the first Red Bull BassLine Madrid title in April.
German Zverev was one of six men's players in action on Friday night at the Vienna Stadthalle - home of this week's Erste Bank Open ATP event - alongside fellow top 50 global players Australian Alexei Popyrin (24) plus Italians Flavio Cobolli (30) and Matteo Berrettini (42).
The 5,300 record fans also cheered on local hero Joel Schwärzler and Japanese veteran Kei Nishikori as Berrettini prepared the crowd with some singing accompanied by live beats from DJ Instyle.
As defending champion, Zverev was the man to beat and he emerged from Group Blue after defeating Schwärzler in three sets, then gave Berrettini no chance in the deciding match for a final place.
In the other Group Red action, world number 143 Nishikori defeated Cobolli 2:1 then Popyrin edged out fellow young star Cobolli 2:1 before sweeping aside Nishikori 2:0 to face off against Zverev.
After Zverev took the first final set, Popyrin - who won the Canadian Open in August to land his third ATP Tour title - countered to take the second and pulled ahead 4-1 in the third only for Zverev to unleash three aces in a row to earn the first ever successful Red Bull BassLine title defence in the fifth edition of the innovative tennis tournament.
Zverev, 27, said: "The atmosphere was great, the spectators were really into it and we players had a lot of fun too."
Group Blue
Joel Schwärzler - Matteo Berrettini 0:2
Alexander Zverev - Joel Schwärzler 2:1
Alexander Zverev - Matteo Berrettini 2:0
Group Red
Kei Nishikori - Flavio Cobolli 2:1
Flavio Cobolli - Alexei Popyrin 1:2
Kei Nishikori - Alexei Popyrin 0:2
Final
Alexander Zverev - Alexei Popyrin 2:1