LONDON, November 17, 2019
Alexander Zverev’s title defence at the Nitto ATP Finals is over. The 22-year-old German lost to Dominic Thiem in the stage of the final four on Saturday evening at London’s O2-Arena.
“The match was, I thought, pretty even,” Zverev said during his press conference. “Dominic obviously played very good from the baseline. But today I was playing with no returns, actually. I was returning really bad and didn’t put a lot of pressure on his serve. And when I did, he was coming out with good serves, good points. Yeah, credits to him. I played a bad game in the second set, and, yeah, that match was over a few games later.”
Zverev experienced a difficult season but finishes the year as World No. 7. “I wasn’t happy at all the whole year. Outside the court on the court. So to finish the year No. 7 in the world, for me, with all the things that happened to me and with all the things that were happening is actually quite incredible. I didn’t think I would. In that point, you can see it in a very positive way,” he said.
“And the other point, of course, I was very disappointing, because I wanted to win more tournaments. I wanted to play better at the big tournaments. Actually, after the US Open I started playing much, much better. I hope I can take that into next season, and we will see.”
🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁#atpfinalsdraw pic.twitter.com/Kt3WO7wOAe
— Alexander Zverev (@AlexZverev) November 5, 2019
Zverev will remain an important member of the young generation, which is trying to challenge the dominant position of the big three in men’s tennis in terms of ranking and tournament victories, including Grand Slams.
“I think next year will bring a new Grand Slam champion,” Zverev said. “We’ll see who that will be, because I think the young guys are playing incredible tennis. It can be Daniil, it can be Stefanos, it can be Dominic. I’m in the mix, as well, I hope. We’ll see what next year brings. But I think for the young guys, it’s going to be an exciting year.”
ATP Cup instead of Davis Cup Finals
Zverev skips the Davis Cup Finals in Madrid next week but will be back in team competition, representing Germany at the ATP Cup in Australia in January.
“I will actually have six days of holidays this year. This is all I’m getting, because I’m still going to South America, still playing with Roger (Federer) for five matches,” the Hamburg native said.
“Of course we will not practice every day for four hours, but this is still difficult. We will have to fly to a different country every day. So this will still be tough kind of few days but very exciting, very happy about that.”
Zverev also revealed plans to have an eye surgery due to his ongoing astigmatism after playing with the Swiss maestro.
“I’ll only have a few days’ holidays, and then I’m actually going to go to New York to maybe do a small procedure that I have to do on my eyes. Then I’ll start training.”
