Zverev gets a marriage proposal on the pitch

Australian Open

After the match, Zverev receives a marriage proposal

After his opening match, Alexander Zverev gives one of the funniest interviews in a long time – including a marriage proposal. But he also criticizes. Or was it all just a joke?

Christoph Cöln reports from Melbourne

It was the beginning of the fourth set that Zverev obviously didn’t like. He struggled with his game. He actually had it under control. But then, with the score at 0-0 against 24-year-old Canadian Gabriel Diallo, a forehand landed just out of bounds and Zverev let his anger run wild. The F-word flew across the square.

One rally later, the 28-year-old from Hamburg was dissatisfied with a decision made by the referee. Zverev looked at his coaches, spread his arms, didn’t want to admit it. Then he went to the chair of the referees and discussed. At this point he was leading 2-1 in sets and had just won the third round comfortably. He had already thrown the racket away in frustration in the first set.

Diallo, currently 41st in the world rankings, had caused the German considerable problems. However, after being 4-1 behind, Zverev fought his way back to 4-4 and made it into the tiebreak. However, he showed nerves there and lost clearly. After that, his game stabilized and he found his way into the game better and better, while Diallo made a lot of slight mistakes on the other side. Zverev played well, but not spectacularly. In the end it was still a clear 6:7 (1:7), 6:1, 6:4, 6:2 for Zverev.

Germany’s number one ultimately mastered the opening hurdle at this year’s Australian Open without any major problems and was satisfied afterwards. He was “not exactly happy” when he saw the draw. The draw had given him a strong opening opponent in Diallo. “After the first set I thought it couldn’t get any worse,” said Zverev in the post-match interview with Andrea Petković. “But things went much better for me after that. The forehand came a little better, the returns came a little better, I generally played more aggressively and just accepted the game more.”

That’s exactly what he has to do on the pitch. “I know that,” he said. Then Zverev allowed another look into his psyche. “I don’t need 58 experts to tell me that. I don’t need 80 million Germans to tell me that every time. I know that myself.”