Montpellier – Alexander Zverev did not completely succeed in his mission to make amends for Melbourne. Around two weeks after his disappointing exit in the last 16 at the Australian Open, the Olympic champion missed out on his first title of the year at the tennis tournament in Montpellier.
Zverev lost 4-6, 3-6 to Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik in the final, but at least gained a bit of renewed confidence after the frustration of Australia during the week in France.
Against Bublik, however, the 24-year-old was never able to build on his previous strong performances at the tournament. On the way to his first final this year, Zverev had dropped just 13 games and defeated his opponents in quick succession. The idea of quickly returning to the court thanks to a wildcard and gaining new confidence in his own games thus seemed to work out very well.
Zverev with too many mistakes
But in the final, Zverev looked tired and made too many mistakes. Even the support of his girlfriend Sophia Thomalla in the stands didn’t help. After only 69 minutes, the match was already over.
In the first set, Zverev quickly recovered from losing serve at 2:3. But he gave up his service again at 4:5, so that Bublik won the first set after 37 minutes. In the second set, too, Zverev found no means against the Kazakh, who served consistently well. Instead, the German number one conceded another break at 2:3 before even surrendering his last service game to go 3:6 down.
“You just played unbelievably well today and all week and you are the deserved winner,” Zverev told Bublik after the match. “I still had a good time here,” said the world number three, who had triumphed in Montpellier in 2017.
It is still unclear what Zverev’s further plans are. He will probably not play again until the end of February at the tournament in Acapulco, Mexico. Zverev won there last year. In March, the two Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami are on the agenda.
