Olympia 2021: Zverev gives tips - Struff still fails to Djokovic
Jan-Lennard Struff cannot stop record hunter Novak Djokovic on his hunt for the Golden Slam either. Alexander Zverev and Dominik Koepfer , on the other hand, are still confident.
by SID
last edit: Jul 26, 2021, 06:52 pm
For a long time they had tinkered with in the German "tennis flat share", their heads were smoking - nothing less was required than to make the apparently impossible possible this season. Alexander Zverev and Co. jointly developed a strategy for Jan-Lennard Struff to put an end to Novak Djokovic's historic record hunt. But despite all the tips and a great fighting performance, the Warsteiner did not manage to trip the exceptional talent.
"I have made a lot of plans. I wanted to beat him. Everyone wants to beat him and be the stumbling block that he does not win the Golden Slam," said Struff after the 4: 6, 3: 6 against the major record champion with the he missed following Zverev and Dominik Koepfer into the last sixteen of the Olympic Games.
He was "very grateful" for the advice of his colleagues, said Struff. Because unlike him, Zverev and Philipp Kohlschreiber have already beaten Djokovic. But as good as the strategy was, the Serb had a better one.
Struff with an aggressive approach
"I wanted to attack a lot more, but I never got around to it, he served too solidly and played too well," said Struff. And so the world number one Djokovic continues to have the historic chance of winning all four Grand Slam tournaments and Olympic gold in one calendar year as the second professional tennis player after Steffi Graf in 1988.
One who could stop him is Zverev - because the German number one is also extremely confident in Tokyo. "You have to play aggressively here, you have to do a lot with the serve. That worked out relatively well today," said the man from Hamburg after he hadn't given the Colombian Daniel Elahi Galan a chance at 6-2, 6-2.
Koepfer with a chance for the quarterfinals?
In the singles, the Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili awaits him as the first tricky hurdle in the fight for the quarter-finals on Wednesday, but the second round in doubles against the French Jeremy Chardy / Gael Monfils is already on Tuesday together with Struff. And after the missed coup against Djokovic, the 31-year-old is all the more motivated. "My dream is that we will go towards the medal," said Struff.
Dominik Koepfer, who will challenge Spanish top player Pablo Carreno Busta on his Olympic debut in the round of 16, can also continue to dream. "I have nothing more to lose," said the man from the Black Forest. The emotional world with Anna-Lena-Friedsam was completely different. The only German in round two felt after the 1: 6, 1: 6 against French Open finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, "like being run over by a steam locomotive", as she said on ZDF.