Berlin – Of course, Alexander Zverev knew which questions would come first. After the rather mild punishment by the men’s professional organization ATP for his freak out at the tournament in Acapulco, when he destroyed his racket at the referee’s chair two weeks ago and verbally abused the referee, the topic in the tennis scene is far from over for him Olympic champion from Hamburg. So the 24-year-old didn’t even bother to talk about anything else before the start of the ATP tournament in Indian Wells – which he is allowed to participate in despite the incident. Because the eight-week suspension and the fine are suspended on probation.
On Wednesday (local time), Zverev sat down in his black training jacket on the chair in the hall where he would soon rather talk about victories in the Californian desert. After a bye, Zverev will enter round two against the American Tommy Paul or the Kazakh Mikhail Kukushkin.
Before that he repented. “That was probably the biggest mistake of my tennis career,” he said of his short circuit in Mexico, which cost him a lot of the sympathy around the world that he had worked hard to earn in previous years. “It was definitely the worst moment of my life and career.” Apologizing is “probably not enough given the way I’ve been acting. It was embarrassing for me, it’s still embarrassing when I’m walking around or in the locker room. It’s not a nice feeling. If this happens to me again, I should be banned. But I’ll do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen. Not just next year, but hopefully for the rest of my career,” said Zverev.
The public image of him has some dents anyway. For a long time he was always very thin-skinned in public, especially after defeats. He has vehemently denied his ex-girlfriend’s allegations of violence, and the ATP investigation is still ongoing. Victory at the Olympic Games in Tokyo and his credible joy at being able to represent Germany then helped Zverev noticeably up the scale of sympathy – but Acapulco has now damaged his image again.
According to his own statements, he has been working on it for months to organize a treat for the fans at home: the Davis Cup, which he would like to bring to Hamburg. Last week in Brazil he ensured that he could qualify for it with his participation and without any background noise.