tennis
Zverev starts at the Australian Open without fear of injury
Tennis professional Alexander Zverev doesn’t always think about his injury. photo
© Frank Molter/dpa
At the Australian Open on the Grand Slam stage, Alexander Zverev returns to the Grand Slam stage. Mentally he seems ready.
Tennis Olympic champion Alexander Zverev at least mentally ticked off the serious foot injury before the start of the Australian Open.
“I don’t think about the injury every day. My thoughts are more: What can I improve? How can I get back in shape? What do I still have to train for? It’s not the fear that I’ll go out on the pitch and get injured again “said the 25-year-old in Melbourne. “When you’re relatively pain free, you think about it less.”
Zverev returns to the Grand Slam stage at the Australian Open, which begins on Monday, after twisting his ankle in the French Open semi-final against Rafael Nadal and then being injured for seven months. In his first round duel on Tuesday, the Hamburger meets the qualifier Juan Pablo Varillas. Zverev saw the Peruvian play only once, “but that’s not the main thing for me,” emphasized the world number 13. “I have to look at myself and see that I get in shape. Every opponent is very good for me important”.
Therefore, Zverev does not count on any chances for the title. “I’m not in the same shape that I was in Paris. In Paris I could have won the French Open and become number one in the world,” he said: “I don’t think I’m there at the moment, but that means not that I can’t change it.”