Suddenly, out of nowhere, the tornado appeared, a lady’s hair stood upright in the air, caps flew away, and bits of paper danced in the sky. Alexander Zverev and Karen Khachanov stood there in amazement, watching the spectacle unfolding on the Grandstand, the medium-sized stadium bowl (8100 seats) behind Arthur Ashe Stadium. Up until then, their training session on Saturday had gone off without incident, although one small thing was noticeable: Zverev was coughing. This little physical problem, which has been bothering him for some time, was already noticeable at the Media Day the day before.
Zverev, who is making another attempt at the US Open to win his long-awaited first Grand Slam title, did not want to make a big deal out of his cough. “I still have a cough, but otherwise I’m OK,” he said. And what did the blood test that he had taken as announced show? “I don’t look at it myself,” he explained, “I think some of my values were just very, very low. And my body was a bit on empty.” But he admitted: “I was very, very exhausted, very tired. We played a lot this year. Luckily I played a lot too. That’s always a positive thing, actually.” But at some point the body just says, “take it easy.” His diabetes is also not the reason for his physical weakness. “I played badly at the Olympics and Montreal,” he admitted. Since then, he has seen his form improve.
At the US Open, Zverev got a good draw, and he could only meet the Serbian Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. In the first round this Monday (11 a.m., 5 p.m. CEST) he will face Maximilian Marterer from Nuremberg, who moved up as a lucky loser. Zverev’s original opponent Emil Ruusovuori from Finland withdrew due to illness. But this season has also shown that sometimes physical problems, sometimes certain opponents, put a stop to his title dreams in the final meters. At the Australian Open, Zverev had a fever before the semifinal against the Russian Daniil Medvedev, and at the French Open he lost to the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz in the final after leading 2-1 sets and losing energy. At Wimbledon, he was eliminated in the round of 16 with a knee injury, marked by a fall in the third round. There was always something.
Zverev, who had doubts in England, has, however, regained his courage: “If I am one hundred percent myself, I will get chances.”
