hat hurts! Last years finalist Alexander Zverev has lost in his opener at the 26th GERRY WEBER OPEN. One week after his first Quarterfinals at a Grand Slam Tournament the Hamburg-born had to admit defeat to Croatian Borna Coric 1:6, 2:6.
Alexander Zverev was obviously trying hard to get into his rhythm quickly at the beginning of the lawn season in Halle. But against Borna Coric, the world's No. 34, the mistakes made by the local hero were making the game. Zverev tried to perform as powerful as usual, seemed quite unrelaxed though and struggled to get length in his shots and in finding his timing. After only 33 minutes and 15 mistakes that shouldn't have happened the German No. 1. Coric got the first set easily and without trouble 6:1.
In Roland Garros the 21 year old showed a lot, that he can turn a bad streak around in a match without a problem. And against Coric, too, Zverev presented a better form in set no. 2. But this wasn't enough for a big comeback because the Croatian shown he was every bit as uncomfortable as expected. The man from Zagreb was much livelier, destroyed Zverevs' game with a poisinous backhand slice and was more stabil in the numerous baseline duels. It wasn't Alexander Zverevs' day: Last years finalist was still en route to finding his own feeling for the grass and was missing the needed smoothness in his game. In the second set, too, the German lost his first service, Coric got more confident and got his game through consequently. The world's No. 3 from Hamburg, who firstly wasn't able to break four times, was also lacking luck in the deciding moments of the match. Here the Croatian showed his best tennis, was attentive while defending and played brilliantly in some phases. Thanks to the support of over 12.000 spectators at the nearly fully seated GERRY WEBER STADION Zverev suddenly put up a strong fight against the defeat after the 1:5 in the second set. He got his first break, won three games in a row and both played a strong number of strokes. But Zverevs turbo was fired too late, there was no catching up and after 84 minutes Coric got his forth match point.
"There is not a lot to analyse about this match - I only trained once on grass beforehand and played one doubles match. I probably had the most difficult draw in the first round. Now I just have to train. Before the match, I tried to think about always feeling good here in Halle on the Centre Court. But that was completely different today. The longer the match took, the better I got. I thought, if I get a break at 4:5, I might be able to turn the match. But that's the way it goes", the shooting star of the ATP World Tour stated. "The most important thing is for sure, that I didn't get any problems with my hamstring. That was all good. Now we will get into the Doubles proper. But we'll just have to wait and see how Mischa is. He seemed to have injured himself a little", Zverev added.
