A month has passed and the tennis industry has already increased its mileage account considerably. One floated in from the USA, another, Alexander Zverev, came from Monaco, having previously left Australia behind, like most of his colleagues. This week, the national associations bring their best together for the team competition, the first Davis Cup duel of the year. The Germans and the Swiss have gathered on the idyllic Moselle, in Trier. Then they continue to jet around the world.
Zverev, 25, spent the days before Trier in Monte Carlo, where he lives. This time the stay on the Cote d’Azur was a bit longer than usual at this time of year: It is rare for a ball virtuoso of his caliber to have so much free time so early in the year after a second-round defeat at the Australian Open . He has spent the past few weeks working hard since returning from Melbourne, said Zverev: “I haven’t done anything except train.” After a long period of injury and recovery, he used all his energy to get back into his usual competitive form. The conclusion of Thursday: “I’m wonderful.”
In Australia, he now reported, he only felt pain free a few days before the start of the tournament. And pain-free, that’s the good news for the Davis Cup colleagues, he has remained since then. He feels “better than ever after my injury,” he said: “I’ve played the best sets in training this week since I’ve recovered.” Now he hopes to put his training performance on the pitch in front of an audience.
Numbers and statistics give an indication of the form rather than the feeling
Because it is also clear: Eight months after the accident at the French Open, when he twisted his ankle against Rafael Nadal in the semifinals and the misstep ruptured seven ligaments in his ankle, Zverev lacks the last certainty about his performance level, despite his general well-being. In tennis, this powerful long-distance duel, the feeling is less an indication of the form of a top athlete than the empiricism. For Zverev, the tight numbers 1: 3 are noted in the ATP statistics for 2023 under the keyword activity: This means that he has lost a total of three matches since the beginning of January at the United Cup in Sydney and then at the Australian Open and only one, won the first-round match in Melbourne against Peruvian Juan Pablo Varillas (before he was subsequently defeated by US professional Michael Mmoh). Four matches – that’s a record without meaning for Zverev. In 2021, the last season he played in full, he had a ratio of 59:15 by December – including six tournament wins in Acapulco, Madrid, the Olympics in Tokyo, Cincinnati, Vienna and Turin.
So he is less looking for the time lost since the accident and more looking for his lost balance sheet. Davis Cup team boss Michael Kohlmann can at least guarantee his number one match practice in Trier. In the duel against Switzerland, Zverev will play the second match against the now 37-year-old three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka this Friday evening. The international match counts as qualification for the group stage in September; it will open at 5 p.m. with the game between Oscar Otte from Cologne, number 80 in the world, and Marc-Andrea Hüsler, currently ranked 53rd and thus nominally the best Swiss.
The fact that just this week in Trier the men’s tennis organization ATP declared the investigation against Zverev over the allegations of violence by his former girlfriend Olga Scharipowa due to a lack of evidence should help to calm things down, suspected team boss Kohlmann. Zverev explained that he was happy to “finally get the issue behind me”. He last played for the Davis Cup team a year ago and contributed the important points against Brazil. Now the 24-year-old Daniel Altmaier, number 91 in the world, has been nominated as a replacement for the injured Jan-Lennart Struff; Kohlmann ordered him from the USA to Trier at short notice. And in doubles, Andreas Mies and Tim Pütz, who last played together in college in Alabama in 2009, as they explained with amusement, compete. A few days in Trier brought the globetrotters together again.
