Australian Open: Alexander Zverev faces knockout rounds against Milos Raonic
The 21-year-old missed his first quarter-final at the Australian Open with a 1: 6, 1: 6, 6: 7 (5: 7) against Milos Raonic (No. 16) and experienced a debacle.
Significant: The Zverev in fourth position was so frustrated in the second set that he thundered his racket a total of nine (!) In a row - and of course received a warning.
by Ulrike Weinrich from Melbourne
last edit: Jan 21, 2019, 07:49 am
After 1:59 hours, Raonic transformed his fourth match ball with a volley in the Rod Laver Arena and inflicted another bitter defeat on a Grand Slam tournament for Zverev. Already in the round of 16 at Wimbledon 2017, the native of Hamburg had drawn the loser against the Canadian.
"In the first two sets I had no idea how to play a tennis ball in the field. That I got into the tiebreak in the third set was a miracle," said Zverev at the press conference and said: "When you have such a day it doesn't matter who is on the other side. There are days when nothing works.
The 28-year-old Raonic now faces Borna Coric (Croatia / No. 11) or Lucas Pouille (France / No. 28) in the game for the jump to the semi-finals.
From the big duel between the 1.98 m tall Zverev and the Raonic, who was only two centimeters smaller, everyone expected a thunderstorm with many aces and few chances for the respective return player. In his first three games, Raonic, Wimbledon finalist of 2016, had a total of 92 aces.
Zverev was completely beside himself - criticism from McEnroe
The game was, however, different than generally forecast: Zverev used his first breakball. But immediately afterwards it became clear that the German number one was not up to par on this wonderful Australian summer day.
In the first set, the winner of the 2018 London ATP final could not (once!) Serve his serve. Zverev kept looking for help in his box, in which coach Ivan Lendl hid his eyes behind a pair of mirror sunglasses and, as usual, did not make a face.
"Zverev is playing so badly. With this performance he would have lost qualifying here in the first round." John McEnroe
With a deficit of 1: 4 "Sascha" threw his racket on the ground for the first time. But it wasn't the wake-up call I hoped for. With a service winner, Raonic got the opening round after 34 minutes. At Zverev, on the other hand, nothing was right: he faced a total of twelve breakballs (20 in total) and acted incorrectly.
US icon John McEnroe said in his role as Channel 9 commentator: "Zverev is playing so badly. With this performance he would have lost the first round of qualifying here."
It didn't get better in the second set. After two double mistakes, he gave up the first game again - and flipped out completely after another 1: 4 deficit.
On the bench, he maltreated his racket like Marcos Baghdatis once, who even smashed four rackets in a game against Stan Wawrinka in Melbourne in 2012. "I was just very angry and wanted to let my anger out," said Zverev about his freak.
When his protégé had completed the "meltdown" and had been warned by chair umpire Carlos Ramos, Lendl took a large sip from the water bottle.
After that, things went a little better for Zverev, whose serve became more stable. But as usual, Raonic sought the way to the network - and successfully (33 points in 48 network attacks). German number one led 4-2 in the tie-break, but the Canadian fought back and kept his nerve.
Little consolation for the Monegasque of choice: In the world rankings, he improves by one place to third - and is even ahead of Roger Federer, who was also eliminated in the round of 16 on Sunday.