When Alexander Zverev hadn’t hit a ball at all at the ATP World Championship, he almost preferred to talk about the coming holidays in London. He also talked about how long, exhausting and gruelling the 2018 season had been. And he was talking about “wanting to step on the gas again, trying the best here.” It didn’t sound overly convincing, that rather dutiful statement of will effort. It sounded more like Zverev was out to avoid a series of defeats.
But then began slowly, but surely, and finally unstoppably, what can be interpreted as a moderate miracle of London. Zverev won his first preliminary round match laboriously, almost undeservedly against Croatian Marin Cilic, then took a sharp rebuff from Novak Djokovic before defeating his friend John Isner for the semi-finals.
Zverev had suddenly discovered powers and resources within himself that he himself did not know were there. “It was a twist, a story I didn’t expect,” said Zverev.
All the more so as he managed to do something on the home straight in the O2-Arena’s event theatre that no other professional player had managed before: To defeat Federer and Djokovic one after the other in this championship of the best, in the semi-finals and final, two of the most formative and successful figures in tennis history.
It was a beckeresque amazement, a sensation to shake one’s head, as the man who 23 years ago was the last German to win this outstanding elite tournament in Frankfurt’s Festhalle had conjured up on the Centre Courts. “It feels extremely good,” said Zverev, the heir of the world champions Becker and Stich, on the evening of the triumph, “the feeling now, that’s hard to describe.”
Zverev, often flagellated as a wannabe superstar, won by far his biggest career title because he had moved away from himself like never before. From the previous Zverev, from the Zverev, who was too hesitant, too hesitant and also too tense at the Big Points, at the big matches.
But Zverev did something in London for the first time that distinguished the best from the very good: He increased the risk enormously in the moment of the challenge, he took his fate courageously and courageously in hand – without losing control and precision. Zverev had the mentality of a champion like never before, and this new format was also needed to wring out people like Federer and Djokovic, a duo that together have won 34 Grand Slam titles and eleven World Cups.
This was also decisive for Zverev’s coup: With incomparable consistency and concentration, the 1.98-meter giant used his serve as a weapon, in the final against Djokovic, he brought 88 percent of the speedy service into the field in the first set, believe it or not.
It was Ivan Lendl, the new man at his side, who once again made Zverev aware of the fact that his matches must be decisively determined by his own strong serve. “That was the absolute focus of our work so far,” says Zverev, whose whole playing had a much more aggressive, forward note. Against the great and the strong, that was the motto, it could not be enough to play along well. But to actively promote success.
Zverev also managed to do something he had failed to do in many disappointing Grand Slam appearances before: Use his powers sparingly and efficiently, still have energy for the really important matches deep in the tournament. “This tournament is complicated for all players because it’s at the end of a long season. And everyone is already riding the last bike a little,” said Tim Henman, the former English world-class man, “you can only win here if you don’t commit robbery on your body.”
Zverev had the last powerful word in a season that ended in the world ranking with the familiar. The first three places in the pecking order are occupied by Djokovic, Nadal and Federer, as they were seven years ago, but they are now all over thirty. In contrast to Zverev, who at the age of 21 has established himself with new authority as the strongest of the very young generation.
The pressure on the Hamburg resident Monte Carlo will not diminish, now as world champion, he will already be under close observation at the Australian Open in January. Always with the question: Can he now make the long-awaited breakthrough at the Grand Slam celebrations, against the resistance of the older gentlemen?
“Stop”, said the world champion, “still the others always win the Grand Slams, really always. We boys are doing everything we can to change that. But it didn’t work out in 2018.” So, will 2019 be different? Zverev didn’t want to think much about it. “I’m not worried about that yet,” he said, “the only thing I’m interested in now is nice holidays.”
But as is the case in the tennis reality of an overcrowded schedule called “absurd” by Zverev: Holidays are scarce, the stress of tournaments is gone, and the relaxed enjoyment of this first, massive title coup is also a thing of the past. On Monday his trip started into the tennisless time, two weeks in Dubai and on the Maldives. “And on December 2nd, 9am in Monte Carlo, I am ready to train again”, says Zverev.
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