Rio de Janeiro (dpa) – The German Davis Cup team has to worry about entering the group phase. In the first round duel in Brazil it is only 1:1 after the first day.
Olympic champion Alexander Zverev lived up to his role as favorite against Brazilian Thiago Seyboth Wild in a clear 6: 4, 6: 2 in the opening singles on Friday. After that, Jan-Lennard Struff made a mistake against the Brazilian number one Thiago Monteiro and had to admit defeat 3: 6, 6: 1, 3: 6.
On Saturday from 6:00 p.m. CET (Sportdeutschland.tv) the doubles match with Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz will start. This is followed by two more singles. First, Zverev plays against Monteiro in the top singles, then Struff meets Seyboth Wild. Changes are still possible until shortly before the games. In the event of a win, Germany would qualify for the group stage in September.
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.
“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.”
But Struff could not use the good starting position. Spurred on by the clamoring Brazilian fans, Monteiro put in a strong performance and clinched the first half after 37 minutes. After that, Struff increased and quickly equalized the set. But then he conceded an early break in the deciding set and had to admit defeat to number 114 in the world.
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. On Saturday it will be up to the German number one again if Germany doesn’t lose Boris Becker in Brazil like they did 30 years ago.