Olympic tennis champion Alexander Zverev unexpectedly lost his opening match at the Masters in Indian Wells and was eliminated early.
At his first individual appearance on the ATP tour since he freaked out in Acapulco two weeks ago, he lost to Tommy Paul from the USA on Sunday evening (local time) 2: 6, 6: 4, 6: 7 (2: 7) and missed the move into the third round. In one of the most important tournaments of the year, there are no longer any Germans.
Kerber on – Koepfer and Otte out
Zverev had a bye in the first round at the hard court event, which is worth around $ 8.6 million. Despite his anger attack two weeks ago in Acapulco, when he attacked the referee’s chair with his racket after a defeat in doubles, the Hamburger was allowed to compete in Indian Wells. The sentence of eight weeks of suspension and the $25,000 fine is suspended for one year.
Before Zverev, Dominik Koepfer and Oscar Otte had already been eliminated in the second round. Koepfer defended himself against the Russian Andrej Rublev for a long time, but lost 5: 7, 4: 6 and missed a surprise against number seven in the tennis world rankings.
Otte forced a third set against the number eleven seeded Pole Hubert Hurkacz and lost 3:6, 6:3, 3:6 in the end. Philipp Kohlschreiber, Jan-Lennard Struff and Daniel Altmaier were eliminated in the first round.