That was a hard piece of work!
Tennis star Alexander Zverev (26) is in the second round of the Australian Open in Melbourne. In the German duel he defeated Dominik Koepfer (29) 4:6, 6:3, 7:6 (7:3), 6:3. Now the Olympic champion will meet the Slovakian qualifier Lukas Klein (25), number 163 in the world, on Thursday.
Seen again and again on television: the hamburger fumbles in his pocket, takes something out and pricks his finger. Clarification: He is diabetic and measures his blood sugar level. This happens all the time in his matches. This way he knows when he needs to eat something small or drink something, even if he is not thirsty. Namely, when the sugar is too low.
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Source: BILD January 16, 2024
“Dominik also came back from an injury. He played really well. We know each other very well and went to the same academy in Florida. But I didn’t play my best tennis. “It’s never easy for me in the first two rounds at a Grand Slam,” says Zverev.
In front of his girlfriend Sophia Thomalla (34), the Hamburg resident has to struggle to keep Koepfer in check when temperatures are over 30 degrees for a long time. Zverev finds his game very late. An early break was enough for number 62 in the first set. In the second then the apparent turning point. This time Zverev gets Koepfer’s serve early and finally the set.
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The blatant outsider played a courageous, sometimes outstanding game and was on the verge of winning the second set when, with the score at 5:4, he had two set points in the third round, which the favorite fended off. Zverev then works as an animal keeper, carefully picking up insects from the ground with a towel and bringing them behind the gang.
In the following minutes this becomes a kind of running gag, sometimes it’s also a matter of avoiding the droppings left by the birds that populate the sky above the brightly lit Margaret Court Arena.
Domink Koepfer played a courageous game, but he couldn’t prevent the defeat
Photo: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/AP
The number 6 can afford this secondary activity, because there are now only a few more than the 50 minor errors in the first three sentences. Zverev gets the break in the fourth set to make it 2-0.
That’s enough. After 3:12 hours, Zverev converted his second match point to 6:3. We made progress, sugar was okay, off to the ice bath. The first step on the way to your first Grand Slam title has been taken.
“With the tie break it went all the way to the end. If I want to beat my next opponents, I have to play even better,” said Zverev.
2024-01-16 11:29:50
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