Alexander Zverev needed three sets to defeat Diego Schwartzman in their ATP Finals match in London. Reuters
Alexander Zverev needed three sets to defeat Diego Schwartzman in their ATP Finals match in London. Reuters
Alexander Zverev needed three sets to defeat Diego Schwartzman in their ATP Finals match in London. Reuters
Alexander Zverev needed three sets to defeat Diego Schwartzman in their ATP Finals match in London. Reuters

ATP Finals: Alexander Zverev grinds past Diego Schwartzman to keep alive semi-final hopes


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Germany's Alexander Zverev kept alive his hopes of reaching the ATP Finals playoffs after grinding past Argentine Diego Schwartzman on Wednesday.

Zverev, the sixth seed, recovered from a mini slump during the second set to defeat his opponent 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in two hours and 11 minutes.

The 23-year-old, who won the ATP Finals title in 2018, will need to defeat world No 1 Novak Djokovic in his final group game on Friday to stay in contention for a place in the semi-finals.

While there were still a few lapses, Zverev ultimately had too much firepower for Schwartzman, the eighth seed who is making his debut in London in place of the injured Roger Federer.

Big-serving Zverev was broken by Schwartzman in the third game but turned the tables with two breaks of his own to take the set.

The Argentine's serve was again under pressure in the first game of the second set but he dug himself out of the hole to hold before Zverev broke in the third game.

The German, who stands 28 centimetres taller than Schwartzman, appeared to be in control without finding his best form but then lost his own serve with a clutch of unforced errors.

Zverev raced through his next service game but then stumbled again on serve as his 28-year-old opponent took the set 6-4 to level the match.

The momentum appeared to be with the Argentine but the match changed direction again in the fifth game of the decider when Zverev broke with a fine backhand volley.

Schwartzman saved two break points in the seventh game but by now the fifth seed was in the groove and he broke again to seal the win.

"That was much better than Monday, Diego is a very difficult player and he deserves to be here," Zverev said in his on-court interview after the match.

"There are no easy matches, so I'm happy to get the win and happy to give myself a chance to go to the semi-finals."

Zverev has an encouraging record against the 17-time Grand Slam champion, winning two of their five meetings, including in the ATP Finals title match in 2018.

"I'm excited for Friday," Zverev said. "It's going to be the most difficult match you can have here, against Novak. We've played twice here already, so I'm looking forward to it."

Zverev arrived in London having picked up a minor injury during his run to the Paris Masters final and he said his immediate focus was to recover his fitness levels ahead of his clash with Djokovic.

"I said from the beginning of the week that I think every match I'm going to improve because of that injury I had in Paris," Zverev said. "I needed to recover a little bit, I needed to get back into the rhythm and hopefully I can play even better on Friday."

Making his fourth appearance at the ATP Finals, Zverev has gathered plenty of experience at the season-ending tournament and its unique format, but he insists he is not relying on his past success in London to help him against Djokovic.

"Right now, it's just a regular tournament – I need to win every match otherwise I'm out, so I've got to go into it with that mindset, like I did today and I did my job, so hopefully I can do that again on Friday."

With the Group Tokyo 1970 action taking place on Wednesday, it's the turn of Group London 2020 on Thursday.

US Open champion Dominic Thiem takes on Russian seventh seed Andrey Rublev in the early evening match.

The third seed opened his campaign with a superb win over second seed Rafael Nadal, who needs to beat Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the later match to avoid elimination.

For all of Nadal's success, the Spaniard has never won the ATP Finals title.

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How to invest in gold

Investors can tap into the gold price by purchasing physical jewellery, coins and even gold bars, but these need to be stored safely and possibly insured.

A cheaper and more straightforward way to benefit from gold price growth is to buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Most advisers suggest sticking to “physical” ETFs. These hold actual gold bullion, bars and coins in a vault on investors’ behalf. Others do not hold gold but use derivatives to track the price instead, adding an extra layer of risk. The two biggest physical gold ETFs are SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.

Another way to invest in gold’s success is to buy gold mining stocks, but Mr Gravier says this brings added risks and can be more volatile. “They have a serious downside potential should the price consolidate.”

Mr Kyprianou says gold and gold miners are two different asset classes. “One is a commodity and the other is a company stock, which means they behave differently.”

Mining companies are a business, susceptible to other market forces, such as worker availability, health and safety, strikes, debt levels, and so on. “These have nothing to do with gold at all. It means that some companies will survive, others won’t.”

By contrast, when gold is mined, it just sits in a vault. “It doesn’t even rust, which means it retains its value,” Mr Kyprianou says.

You may already have exposure to gold miners in your portfolio, say, through an international ETF or actively managed mutual fund.

You could spread this risk with an actively managed fund that invests in a spread of gold miners, with the best known being BlackRock Gold & General. It is up an incredible 55 per cent over the past year, and 240 per cent over five years. As always, past performance is no guide to the future.

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills

Company Profile 

Founder: Omar Onsi

Launched: 2018

Employees: 35

Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)

Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners

Dirham Stretcher tips for having a baby in the UAE

Selma Abdelhamid, the group's moderator, offers her guide to guide the cost of having a young family:

• Buy second hand stuff

 They grow so fast. Don't get a second hand car seat though, unless you 100 per cent know it's not expired and hasn't been in an accident.

• Get a health card and vaccinate your child for free at government health centres

 Ms Ma says she discovered this after spending thousands on vaccinations at private clinics.

• Join mum and baby coffee mornings provided by clinics, babysitting companies or nurseries.

Before joining baby classes ask for a free trial session. This way you will know if it's for you or not. You'll be surprised how great some classes are and how bad others are.

• Once baby is ready for solids, cook at home

Take the food with you in reusable pouches or jars. You'll save a fortune and you'll know exactly what you're feeding your child.

Our family matters legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

Key changes

Commission caps

For life insurance products with a savings component, Peter Hodgins of Clyde & Co said different caps apply to the saving and protection elements:

• For the saving component, a cap of 4.5 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 90 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term). 

• On the protection component, there is a cap  of 10 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 160 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).

• Indemnity commission, the amount of commission that can be advanced to a product salesperson, can be 50 per cent of the annualised premium for the first year or 50 per cent of the total commissions on the policy calculated. 

• The remaining commission after deduction of the indemnity commission is paid equally over the premium payment term.

• For pure protection products, which only offer a life insurance component, the maximum commission will be 10 per cent of the annualised premium multiplied by the length of the policy in years.

Disclosure

Customers must now be provided with a full illustration of the product they are buying to ensure they understand the potential returns on savings products as well as the effects of any charges. There is also a “free-look” period of 30 days, where insurers must provide a full refund if the buyer wishes to cancel the policy.

“The illustration should provide for at least two scenarios to illustrate the performance of the product,” said Mr Hodgins. “All illustrations are required to be signed by the customer.”

Another illustration must outline surrender charges to ensure they understand the costs of exiting a fixed-term product early.

Illustrations must also be kept updatedand insurers must provide information on the top five investment funds available annually, including at least five years' performance data.

“This may be segregated based on the risk appetite of the customer (in which case, the top five funds for each segment must be provided),” said Mr Hodgins.

Product providers must also disclose the ratio of protection benefit to savings benefits. If a protection benefit ratio is less than 10 per cent "the product must carry a warning stating that it has limited or no protection benefit" Mr Hodgins added.

How to get exposure to gold

Although you can buy gold easily on the Dubai markets, the problem with buying physical bars, coins or jewellery is that you then have storage, security and insurance issues.

A far easier option is to invest in a low-cost exchange traded fund (ETF) that invests in the precious metal instead, for example, ETFS Physical Gold (PHAU) and iShares Physical Gold (SGLN) both track physical gold. The VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF invests directly in mining companies.

Alternatively, BlackRock Gold & General seeks to achieve long-term capital growth primarily through an actively managed portfolio of gold mining, commodity and precious-metal related shares. Its largest portfolio holdings include gold miners Newcrest Mining, Barrick Gold Corp, Agnico Eagle Mines and the NewMont Goldcorp.

Brave investors could take on the added risk of buying individual gold mining stocks, many of which have performed wonderfully well lately.

London-listed Centamin is up more than 70 per cent in just three months, although in a sign of its volatility, it is down 5 per cent on two years ago. Trans-Siberian Gold, listed on London's alternative investment market (AIM) for small stocks, has seen its share price almost quadruple from 34p to 124p over the same period, but do not assume this kind of runaway growth can continue for long

However, buying individual equities like these is highly risky, as their share prices can crash just as quickly, which isn't what what you want from a supposedly safe haven.

Adele: The Stories Behind The Songs
Caroline Sullivan
Carlton Books

Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas

Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa

Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong

Rating: 3/5

The%C2%A0specs%20
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Like a Fading Shadow

Antonio Muñoz Molina

Translated from the Spanish by Camilo A. Ramirez

Tuskar Rock Press (pp. 310)

UK-EU trade at a glance

EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years

Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products

Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries

Smoother border management with use of e-gates

Cutting red tape on import and export of food

TO A LAND UNKNOWN

Director: Mahdi Fleifel

Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa

Rating: 4.5/5

ESSENTIALS

The flights

Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.

The hotels

Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.

The tours

A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages. 

The Settlers

Director: Louis Theroux

Starring: Daniella Weiss, Ari Abramowitz

Rating: 5/5

How to donate

Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
2289 – Dh10
2252 – Dh 50
6025 – Dh20
6027 – Dh 100
6026 – Dh 200

 

Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital

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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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