Alexander Zverev feels ready for the Australian Open in Melbourne despite his bumpy start into the tennis year 2018 at the Hopman Cup.
Perth “always counted him as an off-season player,”said the world number four on Saturday:”I needed time to get my tennis in order. In the meantime, I feel physically and playfully even better than last year.”
Zverev had lost three of his four singles at the mixed tournament on Australia’s West Coast in the first week of January, but it was clear to him that “I’m not yet playing my best tennis there”. Not until shortly before Christmas, the native of Hamburg had returned to the court, before that the athletics had been the focus of the brief preparation for the season. The 20-year-old did not put any specific emphasis on the court afterwards:”I have to improve a lot of things from the point of view of tennis. You have to work on everything.”
At the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, Zverev will face Thomas Fabbiano from Italy on Tuesday, and in the third round he could face his brother Mischa, who is ten years his senior,”Hopefully we’ll both make it, and then it will be an interesting day,”said Zverev. The first meeting of the brothers on the professional tour would be “a happy moment” for the whole family, said “Sascha” and added with a wink:”But in the final it would be better of course”.
Zverev showed no sympathy for the criticism of his super coach Juan Carlos Ferrero expressed by icon Mats Wilander in the sports picture:”He is a help to me and my father,”said the winner of the Rome championship over the Spaniard:”Juan Carlos has an influence on me and tells me things that my father also says to me. It was an easy decision for me to get him.”
The Swede Wilander had blasphemed:”You can get a super coach if you have a problem. “If you get it too soon, it’s the only way to get a problem.”