Germany’s Davis Cup Team Faces Challenge without Alexander Zverev

In difficult times, unusual means are sometimes necessary. When England’s football icon David Beckham broke his foot in 2002, an entire nation, including Queen Elizabeth II, worried whether he would recover in time for the World Cup. The tabloid “The Sun” even ran a photo of Beckham’s bare foot on the front page and urged its readers to bring about some kind of miraculous healing through the collective laying on of hands. Whether through voodoo or purely medical skill – Beckham and his foot actually made it to the World Cup.

With Alexander Zverev, however, laying on of hands together will no longer be of any use. The bump on his left thigh shouldn’t grace the front pages in this country, because the muscle tear underneath won’t disappear spontaneously. A real miracle cure would be necessary for Germany’s best tennis professional to be fit again for the Davis Cup relegation this weekend. But that is not in sight.

So the German team is without its best man in the duel for remaining in the World Group against Bosnia-Hercegovina. The 49-year-old team boss Michael Kohlmann is also aware that Zverev’s failure is serious.

He had fully expected to be ranked tenth in the world rankings, who had proven with his quarter-finals at the US Open that he had finally found his best form again after the ankle injury last year. “Of course we would have liked to have had him there for this important game,” said Kohlmann, encouraging himself: “But I am convinced that we will be strong enough to survive against Bosnia-Hercegovina even without him.”

Not a sure-fire success for Kohlmann’s team

However, Kohlmann is not only missing his number one on the clay court of the Mostar Tennis Club, but also his two. Jan-Lennard Struff has just returned to training after a long injury break. “He would have liked to support us,” explained Kohlmann, “but it would have come too early for him to play.” Now Daniel Altmaier, Yannick Hanfmann, Maximilian Marterer and the doubles specialists Tim Pütz and Kevin Krawietz have to prevent relegation as a collective.

Asked as a motivator: Michael Kohlmann, team boss of the German Davis Cup team: Image: IMAGO/Eibner

Despite all the optimism that Kohlmann would like to radiate, there is still a small setback: none of his individual players have won a game in the Davis Cup so far. “That is definitely one thing that would have helped if you had someone who had already scored several points for Germany,” said the team boss, but pointed to the very decent results that his players had shown on clay this season and on the good team spirit of his team.

It is also true that Bosnia-Hercegovina is not a heavyweight in world tennis. Having only been involved in the traditional Davis Cup competition since 1996, the Bosnian team made it into the World Group play-offs once in 2018. The country is currently in 29th place in the national rankings, Germany is fifth – but still failed in the first round 2-3 to Switzerland. Bosnia-Hercegovina lost 3-1 to Sweden.

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The German team is the favorite even without Zverev and Struff, because only the now 31-year-old Damir Džumhur, the former number 23 in captain Zoran Zrnic’s team, was already among the world’s best and was also able to defeat Zverev once when he was still number four . It won’t be a sure-fire success for Kohlmann’s team, “we will have to reach our performance limit,” he announced.

A lot will be decided for the Germans this weekend by their greater will and strong nerves. But Kohlmann has so far proven himself to be a good motivator who sets the right tone for his players even in difficult moments. “I am very positive about the outcome of the weekend,” emphasized Kohlmann. Incidentally, England and Beckham were eliminated in the quarter-finals and Germany became runners-up. Maybe the dent in the nation is overrated.

2023-09-15 12:07:00
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