The Rome Masters 1000 faces its decisive phase starting this Wednesday, but the echoes of the past Madrid Mutua Open are still resonating, especially the impact of Carlos Alcaraz’s great victory and Alexander Zverev’s harsh criticism of the organization for the timing of their quarterfinal and semifinal matches .
The German He complained about the night hours that corresponded to him have “taken away opportunities” to win. “The work of the ATP has been an absolute disaster this week. Two days ago I went to bed at half past four or four, yesterday at twenty past five. If any normal person goes to bed one night at four and then at five, it would be hard for her to just be awake,” the world No. 3 said on Sunday after losing the final against Carlos Alcaraz.
“I don’t want to take any credit away from Carlos and today, even if he had been fresh, probably wouldn’t have beaten him but definitely would have been a better matchhe added.
Well, in the last hours Zverev has found an ally in his ‘war’ against night shifts. This is Novak Djokovicwho did not cut a hair when criticizing the situation experienced by the German in Madrid.
Novak Djokovic publicly supported Alexander Zverev
“You can’t finish your semi-final match at one in the morning and play the final the next day. I understand that they want to sell more tickets scheduling a night session on Saturday, but that can cause problems,” the Serbian opined after beating Aslan Karatsev in his debut at the Rome Masters 1000.
“The organizers should talk to the players before making these types of decisions.. When I was the president of the Player Council several years ago, I tried to solve this problem. But still, nothing changed” added the visibly upset world number 1.
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Djokovic once again demonstrated that he is getting closer to his best level and overwhelmed the Russian Aslan Karatsev in two sets (6-3 and 6-2), in just over an hour and a half.
sweeping debut
‘Nole’ began unstoppably, wanting to solve the game. He broke Karatsev’s first serve and went 2-0 at the first change. The Russian reacted, redeeming himself from his errors in the first serve and in the rest, recovered the lost game and tied the contest.
Novak Djokovic, with a firm step in Rome
The match was even, but Djokovic continued to command in the key moments and managed to break his opponent’s serve again to take the first stake.
The second round was much lighter for the Serbian, who in a seen and not seen got 4-0 in favor that sentenced Karatsev and with which he let himself go, taking his foot off the accelerator, until the end of the crash.
In the round of 16, the winner of the match between his compatriot Laslo Djere and the Swiss Stan Wawrinka will be measuredwho gave the surprise of the day on Monday by eliminating the American Reilly Opelka.
