US Open: Zverev, Görges and the serve as "mirror image of the tennis soul"
There is so much to be found in professional tennis - and when it is gone you have a problem. Alexander Zverev now seems to have solved this.
by Jörg Allmeroth from New York
last edit: Sep 01, 2019, 05:33 pm
Boris Becker once called him a "difficult friend". Or as a "member of my family". He meant the serve. His main blow. The blow that served him as the most important weapon in three Wimbledon victories and a total of six Grand Slam triumphs. Becker said that he had "wonderful and terrible moments" with this companion, "there is no doubt that almost everything depends on tennis in this stroke." The only stroke that no opponent can influence, disrupt or prevent.
Alexander Zverev can also sing a song about the service, the vagaries and pitfalls of the service. This year he slipped into his biggest crisis because suddenly his strongest plus, the serve, suddenly became his biggest opponent. Shortly before the US Open, he was eliminated at the Masters tournament in Cincinatti with no less than 20 double errors against the Serb Miomir Kecmanovic. He later found it to be "surreal": "It can't be," says Zverev, "that the service is gone." Well, it wasn't gone, but weak to very weak. Zverev no longer landed a direct hit, but double faults. And the percentage rate of his first serves was weak and mediocre.
# BETATHOMEUSWIN #
Zverev with 25 aces
And now? When Zverev dueled the Slovenian Aljaz Bedene in four tough sets in Flushing Meadows on Saturday and deservedly won the competitive game 6: 7, 7: 6, 6: 3 and 7: 6, the world of the German was head over heels again Legs put. Everything was like the best of times, it had to be that way, otherwise Zverev would hardly have passed the test against the hard-hitting rival. Zverev struck 25 aces, served only seven double faults, it was a balance that the towering Hamburger needs.
He has to determine the attritions on the comparatively slow hard courts in Flushing Meadow with his serve. If he wins over 70 percent of his service points and 21 out of 23 service games, as against Bedene, not much can usually happen to him. Which also applies to Julia Görges, who also has a better serve in New York and, like Zverev, has now reached the round of 16. "The equation is simple: a strong serve means more self-confidence," says Görges, "you go to the court with a completely different feeling."
The serve as a "reflection of the soul"
Back to Zverev. In the past few months, the stress on Team Zverev had affected him, the boss of the company, like a disease on the service. Week after week there was a decline in the German who had benefited from a fulminant serve in his assault on the World Cup throne last November. On the final weekend he was able to defeat Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic because with his precise and hard service he immediately gained decisive advantages and gained dominance in the rallies. “The serve is like a reflection of the soul,” says Becker, the old master, “if it suddenly doesn't work anymore, that's not a technical problem. It's a mental one. "
At Zverev everything went wrong next to the court, problems with the girlfriend, problems with the manager, the noise between Papa Zverev and super coach Ivan Lendl. And suddenly Zverev realized that the matter-of-factness with which previously as a brilliant server went through the world was not that: a matter of course. Helplessly Zverev registered how he suddenly accumulated, hesitated and hesitated. You could see him shaking his head again and again, it was a picture of the lack of understanding of what was happening to him. The crisis worsened again in the summer, with some experts even comparing the problem to golfers' illness "Yips, the tremor in his arms when the ball needs to be putted on the green.
The Federer effect?
Even in the first days of training in New York, Zverev felt that things were changing. "Suddenly it was running again. Crazy, ”says Zverev. Did it have to do with the agreed agreement that Team8, Roger Federer's agency and its manager Tony Godsick would look after it in the future? Not excluded, even likely. From the very first minute, Zverev appeared tidier, more relaxed and relaxed at the US Open, more balanced than ever before this year. His opponents felt it through the serve. Suddenly the decisive numbers were right again, plenty of aces, few double mistakes. And good point odds whenever the first serve landed.
Zverev must also benefit from the strength that he has found again against the small Argentine racker Diego Schwartzmann, on Monday in the round of 16. Zverev has to serve very, very well in order not to let the little man with the big fighter heart really come into play. After a win, there could be a duel with Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals.