Indian Wells – Olympic tennis champion Alexander Zverev unexpectedly lost his opening match at the Masters in Indian Wells and was eliminated early.
In his first singles appearance on the ATP Tour since his freak-out in Acapulco a fortnight ago, he lost 2-6, 6-4, 6-7 (2-7) to Tommy Paul of the USA on Sunday night (local time) and missed out on a place in the third round. This means that there is no German left in one of the most important tournaments of the year. Angelique Kerber reached the round of 16 in the WTA tournament taking place at the same time.
Kerber continues – Koepfer and Otte out
Zverev had a walk-through in the first round at the hard-court event, which is worth around 8.6 million US dollars. Despite his anger attack a fortnight ago in Acapulco, when he attacked the umpire’s chair with his racket after losing a doubles match, the Hamburg native was allowed to compete in Indian Wells. The penalty of an eight-week ban and the fine of 25,000 US dollars are suspended for one year.
Before Zverev, Dominik Koepfer and Oscar Otte had already been eliminated in the second round. Koepfer put up a long fight against Russian Andrey Rublyov, but lost 5:7, 4:6 and missed a surprise against the number seven in the tennis world rankings. Otte forced a third set against Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, the eleventh seed, but ultimately lost 3-6, 6-3, 3-6. Philipp Kohlschreiber, Jan-Lennard Struff and Daniel Altmaier were eliminated in the first round.
