Alexander Zverev at the US Open: Knight in Olympic Armor – Sport

It was just a training game that Alexander Zverev and Diego Schwartzman played in the Arthur Ashe Stadium completed, and yet the Argentine looked a little desperate – not because of his performance: The guy in the mint green shirt on the other side of the network was simply incredibly in a good mood, he played powerfully and precisely; patient yet dominant; confident but not arrogant. At some point, during a break, Schwartzman crouched exhausted in the shade, he spoke to the trainer and pointed annoyed at Zverev as if to say: Phew, good luck to everyone who has to compete against him at the US Open!

Clothing can be armor, it protects against cold, heat, unpleasant looks, and sometimes against your own thoughts. It was therefore interesting that Zverev wore exactly this shirt when he returned to this stadium, where he had suffered the bitterest defeat of his career a year ago. He had led 2-0 in sets in the final against Dominic Thiem, but he lost it, 6: 8 in the tie-breaker of the fifth set. It was the greatest success of his career to date, he had never reached a Grand Slam final before, and yet he felt more sad than seldom before.

Zverev was only two points away from victory – two points!

“I think about it a lot,” he said after the training session with Schwartzman: “I was only two points away from victory.” He also weaved into the answer to the next question: “I was only two points away from victory.” He said it five times in English and twice in German, and when asked about the weather in New York, he would probably have said that he was only two points away from victory last year.

Defeats shape an athlete, often much more so than triumphs. Roger Federer, for example, keeps talking about how he was concerned about the lost final at the 2009 US Open against Juan Martín del Potro – and Novak Djokovic about the fact that he always thinks of the 2015 final defeat by Stan Wawrinka when he comes to Paris, especially after the quarter-final victory against Rafael Nadal, who was considered invincible at the French Open.

Disappointments can break you, but they can also make you stronger – who knows if Djokovic has a chance at that Grand Slam had, the second half of last season would not have been so disastrous; and who knows whether Zverev would also be considered the most promising candidate to prevent this Djokovic target had the past few weeks been a little different.

This mint green shirt from Zverev was not one of the sponsors sent (Zverev currently has no supplier), but the shirt of the German Olympians in Tokyo. Later, at the press conference, he wore the white polo shirt of the German Olympic team.

So he is now returning to the place where he was only two points away from the first Grand Slam title of his career, and he is wearing the clothes he wore for the greatest success of his career – he won the gold medal in Tokyo and wrestled in Semifinals Djokovic masterfully downed – as if it were armor against demonic thoughts. “I still have the game in my head to this day,” he said, but he also said after mentioning the two points: “I’m an Olympic champion, I’ll be that forever. I’m very happy with how the past month went “You don’t see something like that very often.”

So far, Zverev has had the best summer of his career

After the Olympics, Zverev also won in Cincinnati, and it was not only impressive that he defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas (Greece) and Andrej Rublew (Russia) on the way to victory – but, how he did that. Tsitsipas, for example, allowed himself an eight and a half minute toilet break, the pre-Olympic champion Zverev would have imploded after such antics and would have lost the game. “I was still annoyed,” he said.

But there is a universe between anger and freaking out in tennis, and so there was only the anger sagging and the loss of the second set; then he was focused again, in the tie-break of the third set Zverev was clearly the stronger nerve player. The final against Rublew was like this training session against Schwartzman in New York: At some point the opponent realized that there were hardly any chances against someone who was so powerful and precise, patient and yet dominant, so confident but not arrogant.

Zverev is, and that’s not just saying, in the form of his only 24-year-old life. This can be seen above all in his second serve – it is supposed to give a glimpse into the soul of a tennis player. Zverev no longer pushes this game opening into the field (or, as in times of great crisis, puts the spectators in the first rows or the ball child on the net in mortal danger), but puts the opponent under pressure and can with this certainty about his own service strength at the opening of the Acting opponents bravely and aggressively – as if they were a knight who has been dipped in dragon’s blood. But New York is not only the place of his bitterest defeat, but also one of the tournaments in which he has been generally vulnerable so far.

Open detailed view

Zverev has never had one Best-of-5-Won the game against a top ten player. Conicidence? May be. But it could also be because Tsitsipas, for example, would go to the toilet four times at such a marathon match and the break when changing sides with the change of shoes would be unbearably lengthy – in 2019, the Greek insulted a referee who urged him to hurry .

In such Grand Slam games, Zverev has to survive not just one, but possibly several annoying situations, even if not the first match on Tuesday against the one-dimensional and somewhat tired US service gunner Sam Querrey, 33. And he has to process that Djokovic, unlike in Tokyo, for example, catches up after a hangover and then possibly plays better than before the minor crisis.

What helps knights against vulnerable places: armor. It would therefore come as no surprise if Zverev competed at the US Open in this mint green shirt from Tokyo.