“I think today was more about me”: Alexander Zverev admits being ‘not good enough’ in defeat to Alex de Minaur

One of the players who was at the receiving end was the reigning world number three Zverev who suffered a thumping defeat to Australia’s number one De Minaur in straight sets with a score of 6-1, 6-4. Before coming into the match, Zverev had a fantastic head-to-head record against Zverev, whom he had defeated eight times in just 10 meetings.

However, that did not matter on the day when De Minaur was simply unplayable and gave Team World a great platform to go and lift the Laver Cup for the third time. Talking after the match, Zverev admitted that he was ‘not good enough’ in the match. Zverev also highlighted that the outcome of the match was the result of him starting in an ‘extremely bad’ manner, from where he could not recover. Zverev also praised De Minaur, who, according to him, played ‘really well’.

“I think I was just not good enough today,” said Zverev. “I think today was more about me, to be very honest. I just started off extremely bad, and I was 4-0 down within a couple of minutes. The first set was gone very, very quickly, and in the second set I was fighting, but I was just not playing well, just not playing well enough, just not doing enough to win this match. I think he played very solid. I think he returned well. I mean, I didn’t hit many aces, but I still had a very high first serve percentage. I just didn’t play well enough from the baseline, I feel like.”

Zverev then went on to highlight the difficulty on playing on the surface, where according to him, hitting the ‘winners’ was difficult. “Yeah, it’s tough to hit winners, for sure,” said Zverev. “I mean, the ball just doesn’t rise up here so much. It’s very slow. But, I mean, I’ve played on this court before. It’s not my first time, so… I know how to win on this court, and I’m sure that I will not play this badly again, if I will play. But, you know, it is how it is now, and I have to move forward and look forward.”

It was Zverev’s first match since the US Open, where he suffered a defeat in the third round to Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime with a score of 4-6, 7-6, 6-4, 6-4. Zverev then explained the reason behind not featuring in any competition before taking part in the Laver Cup. Zverev stated that not only did he not feature in any competition after the fourth and final Grand Slam of the year, but he did not practice much as well.

“Yeah, I mean, I didn’t practise much the last few weeks, so… It’s something I’m working on,” said Zverev. “I feel like in the U.S. swing, it was something that was working well for me in Toronto and Cincinnati. Not so well in New York, but, you know, it’s a process. It’s a process with the people that I have behind me as well. I had some back issues, but nothing major. I felt fine out there. I had two injections, so I just needed time off.”

Zverev is now set to face high-flying American Taylor Fritz in an importan clash on Sunday. Fritz will be coming into the match with high confidence as he defeated world number one Carlos Alcaraz for the first time in his career on Saturday. It will be the 14th meeting between the two players in professional tennis. In the previous 13 meetings, Fritz had a clear advantage with eight wins and five defeats.