Alexander Zverev: Federer shows, eye surgery - and only 6 days holiday
The hoped-for title defense at the ATP Finals has missed Alexander Zverev, the participation in the Davis Cup prematurely canceled. His tennis year continues.
by SID
last edit: Nov 18, 2019, 09:53 am
Alexander Zverev was in travel stress. Time to work up his missed title defense remained the German top player barely on Sunday, the private jet of Roger Federer was finally ready. Together with the Swiss Zverev was not 24 hours after his semi-final defeat against Dominic Thiem at the ATP Finals in London in the plane to South America. The tennis year of the 22-year-old is anything but over.
While his colleagues from the German Davis Cup team will compete in the newly created final tournament in Madrid starting Wednesday, five competitions against Federer are scheduled for Zverev in the coming weeks. In Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador, the two duel in some spectacular arenas. Shortly before the turn of the year, there will probably be another show event in China.
"Six days of vacation" he will have this year, Zverev reckoned on Saturday night with tired eyes, immediately after the 5: 7, 3: 6 against Thiem had ended at least the official part of his season. A season that kept Zavev more downhill than heights. "I was not happy all year round," he complained in retrospect, "Not next to the place, not on the court."
After all, Zverev has now overcome this mood low. In London, he regularly stressed, especially privately to be much stronger again. Even the sporting performance, outshone especially by his first win against Rafael Nadal directly to the opening, was conciliatory despite the lack of repetition of his title coup. "After all the things that have happened to me" his balance at the end of the year was "really incredible", Zverev himself found.
Zverev: "Believe in new Grand Slam winner"
The world ranking list will take the momentum into the new season. Not least because he sees the supposedly overdue replacement of the "Big Three" Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic now finally moving closer. "I firmly believe there will be a new Grand Slam winner next year," said Zverev, naming Russian Daniil Medvedev and two London finalists Thiem (26) and Stefanos Tsitsipas (21) as hot candidates: "Me I hope I'm in the raffle, too. "
Zverev even sacrifices his holidays for this purpose this year, although obviously not completely on his own. The extensive marketing journey with Federer is a result of the summer's noisy change to Federer's management company "Team8". The native of Hamburg announced that he would then undergo an eye surgery in New York in December in order to be able to play without contact lenses in the future. "I had a lot of problems with contact lenses during the season," says Zverev. "Maybe I'll have it operated on."
From the announced recovery on the beach, in April still one of his main reasons for the early announced Davis Cup waiver, so nothing. But Zverev made an effort not to spoil the trip with Federer. "It's going to be tough days, but also very exciting," he said. "I'm very happy about that." Much time to complain or ponder probably did not stay anyway. The plane was already waiting.