2024-07-22 20:24:15
In a thrilling final, Alexander Zverev loses to a youngster in his hometown. The Hamburg native also has to struggle with his body.
Alexander Zverev waved the consolation prize to the audience and looked around his tennis living room, slightly dejected. “What a week. At the beginning, with all the pain, I couldn’t have imagined that I would be standing here with the trophy now. Unfortunately, it was the wrong one, but I had so many emotions inside me,” said Zverev after the mood dampener in his home town – and was already able to smile again.
The Olympic champion missed the chance to repeat his triumph from last year at his home game in Hamburg after a cracker match. Zverev, a type 1 diabetic who also had to struggle with his blood sugar in the great heat in the Hanseatic city, suffered an unexpected setback just a week before the start of his mission to defend his title at the Paris Games.
“I would like to thank everyone for a week that I will never forget, even if I didn’t manage to defend my title,” said Zverev at the awards ceremony – and added a challenge to his team. “We want to be number one in the world by the end of the year.”
In the heated final at the Rothenbaum, the 27-year-old lost to the strong Frenchman Arthur Fils after a marathon match with 3:6, 6:3, 6:7 (1:7) – he must therefore wait for his 23rd tournament title on the ATP Tour. Fils, ranked 28th in the world, converted his first match point after an adventurous 3 hours and 33 minutes.
Zverev’s injured and bandaged left knee didn’t seem to cause him any major problems on Sunday, but the 30+ degrees in his hometown did – he was visibly struggling with discomfort in the first set. “My blood sugar was very low. That made me a bit dizzy in the first set – and since we played in 31 degrees, I felt sick,” explained Zverev, who finally got his problems under control with electrolytes.
“But that wasn’t the reason why I lost,” said Zverev. Last year he had fulfilled his childhood dream of winning the title at home, but this time he didn’t take advantage of his numerous opportunities and ultimately had to admit defeat. “I had 22 break points and only used one – that doesn’t help.”
Zverev had a tough time against Fils in the fight for his second title this year, but he forced the deciding set with an improvement in performance in the second round. At the beginning of the match, the roof of the arena was closed due to a heavy summer thunderstorm.
Zverev, who is travelling on to Paris on Tuesday, was happy about the falling temperatures, but tempers did not cool down in the high-class match. When thunder rumbled outside the arena, the opponents also clashed loudly during a change of ends – in the end, the Frenchman celebrated after one of the longest finals in the history of three-set matches on the ATP Tour.