Tennis star feared “flight home”
Zverev averts embarrassment with the utmost effort
January 18, 2024, 6:55 a.m
That was a lot of hard work: Alexander Zverev fought off a quick knockout at the Australian Open with a lot of effort. Germany’s best tennis player has to go the full distance against Lukas Klein, number 163 in the world; the fifth set will be decided in a tiebreak.
Alexander Zverev only averted embarrassment at the Australian Open with great difficulty and thanks to strong nerves. The Hamburger survived a five-set thriller against Slovakian qualifier Lukas Klein in the second round and only won after more than four hours of play with 7:5, 3:6, 4:6, 7:6 (7:5), 7:6 (10:7). In the hunt for his first Grand Slam title, the Hamburger has to improve significantly; he wobbled worryingly against Klein. “To be honest, he would have deserved the win today more, but that’s how tennis is sometimes,” said Zverev in the on-court interview: “I thought there would be a flight home for me at 11 p.m. today.”
At the start he had a lot of trouble in four sets against compatriot Dominik Koepfer. The 26-year-old hardly found his game against the furiously playing 163rd in the world rankings, and even a 1-0 set lead didn’t give him any self-confidence. There was no sign of his strong form at the start of the year. In the tiebreak of the fourth set, he kept the upper hand with strong nerves and then turned things up decisively in the fifth round.
Under the closed roof of the John Cain Arena, he used his first match point in the dramatic final tiebreak. In the third round, Zverev will face the American Alex Michelsen (19).
Zverev started the year strongly with the triumph at the United Cup, but he is still looking for his rhythm on the Yarra River. As number six in the world, the Hamburg native is one of the favorites at the first major tournament of the year. His best result in Melbourne is reaching the semi-finals in 2020. In the afternoon Jan-Lennard Struff is fighting for a ticket to the third round, the Warsteiner meets the Serbian Miomir Kezcmanovic.