Nothing came of the role of favorite: Alexander Zverev has already been eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Masters in Indian Wells. And that despite two match balls. Accordingly, his frustration afterwards was great.
Maybe Alexander Zverev was already thinking about Nikolos Bassilaschwili, maybe even in the final. 5: 2 in the third set against Taylor Fritz – a clear thing. With two match points, Zverev was only missing a single point to win, and yet after almost two and a half hours it was time to travel home instead of the semifinals at the Masters in Indian Wells. Zverev had missed a huge opportunity and was frustrated.
After the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, supposedly the biggest opponent, had surprisingly failed to Bassilashvili shortly before, the way for the Olympic tennis champion seemed to be free. All the more painful was the end against the world rankings 39th, Zverev made no secret of it.
“Just want to go home”
“I just want to go home, to be honest. The defeat hurts because I knew that after Stefanos’ defeat I was the favorite to win the tournament,” said Zverev. “I was so close to winning, but I didn’t keep the level consistently.”
On top of that, he was annoyed by the behavior of some spectators. “On the one hand there were a few who always talked between the first and second serve and didn’t say nice things,” said Zverev. “Then at some point I said, okay, third sentence, tie-break, at least be respectful.”
Previously, Zverev cracked the “Big Four” mark
In the decision set, Zverev set the course for victory early on, but missed the last point both at 5: 2 and 40:30 as well as at 5: 3 and his own serve. In the tie-break, Fritz pulled away to 4-0 and finally brought his third match point to the goal. Boris Becker (1987 and 1988) remains the only German winner at the elite tournament in the Californian desert.
With convincing performances, Zverev had made it into the quarter-finals of the hard court tournament for the first time. Among other things, he beat the three-time Grand Slam winner Andy Murray and thus completed his collection of victories against the “Big Four”. The major record champions Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic had already beaten Zverev.
Since his triumph in Tokyo he had won 20 of 21 matches, only in the semifinals of the US Open the world number one Djokovic managed to get revenge for his Olympic defeat. Almost 4,500 kilometers from New York, Zverev’s triumphant advance came to an abrupt end.
At least one little consolation remains: Zverev had already qualified for the ATP Finals in Turin (November 14th to 21st) through his third round entry. It is his fifth participation in a row in the final tournament, which he won in 2018.
Former world number one Viktoria Asarenka and Paula Badosa from Spain contest the women’s final in Indian Wells. Asarenka (Belarus) prevailed in her semifinals against Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) 3: 6, 6: 3, 7: 5. Badosa, who had beaten Angelique Kerber (Kiel) in the quarter-finals, won against Ons Jabeur (Tunisia) 6: 3, 6: 3.
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