Zverev, Djokovic and Nadal provide film material

When the last balls are in the basket at the last tournament of the year and the players are on their way to the all-too-short vacation, it is usually time to look back and look ahead. What was?

A season under difficult conditions with longer breaks, games without spectators, a tournament schedule without Wimbledon. The usual suspects among the big winners like Novak Djokovic, who wins his eighth title in Melbourne when everything looks normal at the beginning; with Dominic Thiem, who won his first Grand Slam tournament in New York in September, and with Rafael Nadal, who grabbed 20th a little later in Paris.

Djokovic can only be amazed

When the two best in the world rankings left the O2Arena in East London on Saturday, one in the early evening and the other around midnight, they had serious defeats in their luggage. Now it’s not as if Novak Djokovic didn’t already know what he had to offer before the twelfth encounter with Dominic Thiem, but in some phases he was still only amazed. The way the Austrian cut a path to victory after four match points awarded at the end of the second set and a 4-0 deficit in the tie-break of the third was powerful and impressive. This end was unreal, said Djokovic afterwards, he really didn’t play badly himself, but the other one hit it and everything went well. Nothing to do.

A few hours later, Nadal slipped away after losing in three eventful sets against Daniil Medvedev. With a score of 5: 4 in the second set, he had served to victory, but with a collection of mistakes he had given this crucial game out of hand. Even after that, he sometimes seemed too confused to stop the concentrated, determined and solidly playing Russian. Small things sometimes make a big difference, Nadal said afterwards. “He did it well and I didn’t do it well enough.” So it remains that the title will be the only one missing from his otherwise gloriously complete collection at the ATP Finals for the time being. This year Medvedev got him, who defeated Thiem 4: 6, 7: 6 (7: 2), 6: 4 in the final. Nadal’s next attempt next year, then after changing the scene in Turin? Quite possible.

Looking into the near future is more difficult at the moment. In the past week, the players had learned that they are not allowed to enter Australia before January 1 and then have to go to the mandatory two-week quarantine, i.e. immediately before the start of the Australian Open; they originally assumed they would fly to Australia in mid-December. Tournament Director Craig Tiley came up on Sunday with a statement reiterating the organizers’ intent to provide players with the best preparation opportunities in a safe environment and that he is working closely with the Victoria State government to do this.

“It’s not just about us”

This means on the one hand that the vacation of the actors and the time to prepare afterwards will be longer than expected, but on the other hand that a lot cannot be planned yet. But with that, Nadal thinks, you just have to live with it. “It’s hard for everyone. We have to be flexible and understand the situation so that we play as many tournaments as possible. In this way we can help these tournaments, including the players who are not that good in the rankings, so that they can keep their jobs, and all the employees who live from our sport. It’s not just about us. “

When the Spaniard spoke the wise words, Alexander Zverev had already left London. After the loss to Novak Djokovic the day before, looking back at 2020, he realized that it was a big year in which he unfortunately lost big games. “The semifinals at the Australian Open, which I could have won, and the final at the US Open, which I should have won. But there is a lot that I can build on. “

When he says that he has experienced more than in a normal year and that you could actually make a film out of it, then of course the events outside of the often empty tennis stadiums also belong to this. When asked whether he would do something to rebut the massive allegations made by his former girlfriend Olga Sharipova, he said: “I have said everything I can say about it. It is very unfortunate that these false accusations can ruin so much and obscure the attention paid to the sport. “

How will things go on now after the complicated year 2019 with all sorts of problems and the even more complicated year 2020 with a mixture of complex events? We will see. If he could wish for three things in 2021, which would they be? Without thinking for a second, Alexander Zverev replies: “Three Grand Slam victories.” Nothing more? “That my child is born healthy.” That is no small wish list for a young man at the age of 23.