“Can’t manage it” – Zverev settles accounts with himself
“In order to say you’re back, you have to win at least once,” Alexander Zverev quarrels
Which: REUTERS
After the next early tournament, tennis Olympic champion Alexander Zverev is hard on himself. For the first time since 2016, another German will be in front of him in the world rankings. Not a good omen for the French Open.
AAfter the knockout round at the Masters tournament in Rome, lexander Zverev sees no progress on the way to his former form and self-confidence. Due to the 2: 6, 6: 7 (3: 7) defeat against the Russian Daniil Medvedev, he will also fall behind Jan-Lennard Struff in the new world rankings next week and for the first time since August 2016 he will no longer be the highest-ranked German be a pro.
“I’m still 1,000 kilometers away,” said the Hamburger in an interview with TV broadcaster Sky about his current level of performance. “To say you’re back you have to win at least once and I don’t do that. I’m out earlier than I would like. Somehow I can’t manage to get any further in the tournament at the moment.”
The semi-finals at the tournament in Dubai at the beginning of March remain the best performance this year.
Struff makes Zverev brave
“I have to win, and then it will work itself out. I don’t know what else to say now. This year I’m currently playing the worst tennis, probably since 2015, 2016,” Zverev stated less than two weeks before the start of the French Open. At the second Grand Slam tournament of the season, he injured his foot badly last year and had to pause for months.
Madrid finalist Struff (33) will now overtake the 26-year-old in the world rankings, but classifies this as irrelevant. “In Sascha we have someone who has been the clear number one in Germany for years. The fact that I’m now so close to him is only due to his long injury and that I again had no points to defend,” Struff said recently in an interview with the German Tennis Association and encouraged Zverev: “I’m sure that too he will soon be back up the rankings.”