Rio de Janeiro (AP) – Olympic champion Alexander Zverev lived up to his role as favorite at the start of the Davis Cup game in Brazil.
The 24-year-old clearly won against the Brazilian Thiago Seyboth Wild 6: 4, 6: 2 in Rio de Janeiro on Friday and gave the German team a 1-0 lead. After 1:34 hours, Zverev converted his first match point on Center Court in Olympia Park.
In the second singles, Jan-Lennard Struff meets Brazilian number one Thiago Monteiro. On Saturday, from 6:00 p.m. CET (Sportdeutschland.tv), first the doubles and then two more singles are on the program. In the event of a win, Germany would qualify for the group stage in September.
“I think it was a solid match for me,” said Zverev after his undisputed victory. “Now Jan-Lennard can go into the second individual with a little more calm. The pressure is now on the Brazilians.”
A week and a half after his disqualification at the ATP tournament in Acapulco, Zverev had a solid performance against number 216 in the world to achieve the expected success. The German number one managed a quick break in the first set, after 51 minutes he got the first round with the second set ball.
The third in the world rankings had no problems with the 21-year-old outsider in the second set either. Zverev twice took the serve from the Brazilian, who had his hand treated briefly in the middle of the sentence, and made the safe success in the first attempt perfect.
After freaking out in Acapulco, Zverev only decided at short notice to make his comeback in the Davis Cup. Actually, he had already canceled the game because it didn’t fit into his tournament schedule due to the Masters 1000 tournament in Indian Wells taking place next week.
But after the negative headlines following his behavior in Acapulco, Zverev is also concerned with polishing his image again. In Acapulco, after losing a double, Zverev hit the referee’s chair several times with a tennis racket and almost hit the referee in the foot. Zverev was subsequently banned from the entire tournament and fined. In addition, the men’s organization ATP is still investigating against the 24-year-old. With the clear opening success against Wild, he took at least a small step towards improving his image.