A little rebellion at the end of the season, Alexander Zverev offered one last resistance. The German tennis professional fought his way to the tiebreaker against his opponent, world number one Novak Djokovic. It was even enough for a mini-tour, but then the Serb continued point by point with the calm and routine of a 17-time Grand Slam winner. Zverev finally drove the ball into the net, and then another very turbulent tennis year was over for him.
He missed the semifinals at the ATP final with this defeat against Djokovic, 3: 6, 6: 7 (4) in the third group game. Also wasted the chance to repeat the greatest triumph of his career under the white round roof of the arena in East London, the victory at this prestigious tournament in 2018. And so, half an hour later, Zverev, 23, was wearing the mask in front of a video camera in the stadium’s press room over his nose, and made his personal twelve-month balance sheet.
In terms of sport, there was little to complain about for the seventh in the ranking. In the course of the year he won two titles, both in Cologne, and won 29 matches in a pandemic-shortened season. “Just a few important games,” he said, “I would have loved to have won.” The semifinals of the Australian Open in January are one of them, as is the final of the US Open, in which he came close to the dream of every tennis professional of winning a Grand Slam tournament for the first time except for a few tricky balls. Apart from that, Zverev caused a stir with such diverse headlines that, with the necessary distance to his own actions, he came to the realization: “You can actually make a film out of my year.”
In this documentation, he himself knows, the farce about the so-called Adria tour, which he undertook in Corona early summer with Novak Djokovic and colleagues under arbitrary ignorance of the hygiene regulations and which earned him criticism worldwide, should be recorded. Also discussed are those serious accusations of domestic violence that his former girlfriend Olga Sharipova recently raised against him in public. Also in London, after the last rally, Zverev was approached again about these allegations. He has again rejected it as false and damaging to reputation. It can be assumed that the cause will continue to occupy him, even if he is less in the spotlight in the coming weeks without play.
The tournament in London will now continue without him. The five-time winner Djokovic, on the other hand, will play against the US Open winner Dominic Thiem from Austria on Saturday for a place in the final. In the other semifinals, the world number two Rafael Nadal from Spain and the Russian Daniil Medvedev meet. The tournament is over for the German doubles Kevin Krawietz / Andreas Mies. And Zverev? He wants to go on vacation. The flight, he says, is going to the Maldives.
.
