“I have to live with it” tennisnet.com

Alexander Zverev he had all the trump cards in hand for his first Grand Slam title, but at the end of a very dramatic game in the fifth set, Dominic Thiem triumphed.

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It was approaching midnight in New York when Alexander Zverev appeared on Sunday for his final US Open date. Zverev was sitting in a television studio, he was watching a video screen, some reporters from all over the world were connected with him. He still looked very tired, very exhausted, his gaze was blank, expressionless, immobile. The loser of the final big drama didn’t have much more to say, in fact everything had been discussed and answered for a long time on center court. “I have to live with it,” Zverev said, “but it’s very bitter. He was so close to victory. “

At that moment he could not give her any consolation, so he did not turn on his cell phone: “I still did not want to read all the messages of forgiveness.” A few moments later, shortly before leaving, he said: “Of all the speeches there is nothing better.”

Thiem is confident that Zverev will win a Grand Slam tournament

It was as brutal as ever: At the end of a two-week Grand Slam show, there is exactly one winner, one champion. And there are 127 losers, and the one who loses last is the worst off. Especially when he loses like Zverev. When you see victory over and over and over again, the time of your life, and when all you have to do is watch your opponent lift the trophy at the award ceremony. There was no shortage of praise, recognition, sympathy, consolation and encouragement for Zverev after the almost incredible 6: 2, 6: 4, 4: 6, 3: 6, 6: 7 (6) failure against his friend Dominic Thiem – and yet there was the big question of how Zverev would leave this knockout in the last meters, how he digested this traumatic experience.

Thiem was the first to give value to Zverev, he said at the award ceremony that “Sascha will make his family proud at some point if he definitely wins a Grand Slam”, and Zverev himself said, “There will be a new opportunity soon” . They were just beautiful words, the vision of a future that nobody knows what it will be like for the young German.

Behind the 23-year-old giant there was a match, a defeat, a super-high confrontation that you will not soon forget. Zverev vs. Thiem, this five-sentence tiebreaker thriller with no happy ending for the Hamburg native, was a duel that was even crazier, more memorable, and more disturbing than this entire phantom Grand Slam itself. He had thousands of games. Already seen, said at the end of the fifth act from a distance, from a television studio in Munich, the tennis chancellor Boris Becker, “but I have never seen anything like it.” From heaven to hell, from hell to heaven again – and Returning once again, was the motto of this crazy game in which nothing was certain, although everything seemed clear from the beginning.

Boris Becker: “Advertising for tennis”

Zverev, taken seriously, had lost the first Grand Slam final of his career after a 2-0 lead in the set, he was the first player in New York to lose such a comfortable lead in 71 years. But what happened in these four hours and one minute in the world’s largest tennis stadium was more: a game with incredible twists and turns on the home straight, a duel with incredible strength, intensity and passion. Finally, a duel reminiscent of a heavyweight boxing match, with two amazing fighters still fighting for every point when they could barely stand on two legs. He saw “two gladiators,” according to Becker, “advertising tennis.”

Zverev will remember this nightmare of missed opportunities many times, no doubt. He had all the trumps in hand, he very well could have walked off the field as a surprisingly confident triumphant in three clear sentences. But he let Thiem get back into the game, who accepted the invitation, tied at 2-2 after sets. When the strength waned, much only controlled from the subconscious, Zverev almost opened the door to tennis heaven again. He brought Thiem’s ​​serve to 5: 3 in the fifth set, won the US Open title and conceded the 5: 4. In Thiem’s ​​next serve game, he was just two points behind the trophy at 0:30, and again the Austrian jumped the death of the Grand Slam of the shovel.

The final to read on the live ticker

Thiem vs. Zverev: drama in the fifth sentence

It went on and on in this fascinating tennis battle. Everything was possible, nothing impossible. Thiem broke the break at 6: 5, Zverev the rebreak at 6: 6. The decision had to be made in the tiebreaker, that ruthless game of chance, this cruel and equally wonderful condensation of drama. He was introduced to tennis 50 years ago, but in New York it had never been a final in the fifth set. “Every point gained is so gigantic, every point lost is a huge burden,” Zverev said later. What happened in the final ten minutes, shortly after two in the morning in Germany, was basically like the microcosm of the entire absurdly fluctuating final: Zverev led 2-0, forgiving the lead, was 3: 5 and 4: 6 in the back, there were two match balls against each other. He rejected them, did 6: 6.

And then, after four weeks in the New York tennis bubble, after 3 hours and 59 minutes in the final, Thiem’s ​​next two points decided this titanic performance. The Austrian sank along, Zverev approached him, the two friends embraced. The long wait was over for Thiem, he had lost his first three Grand Slam finals. For Zverev, however, there was initially only hope of being the first to cross the finish line elsewhere or in New York as soon as possible.

Zverev thanks his parents: “They were always with me”

Zverev’s disappointment was initially hidden, after the playoff accident he was sitting in the Ashe Palace, this haunted house of the US Open 2020, like the loneliest person on the planet on his bench, he did not wince, he looked somewhere and nowhere part. At the award ceremony, the mandatory words of the runner-up, hidden feelings erupted. Zverev had fought this entire Grand Slam fight alone, for the first time since the beginning of his career, neither his mother Irina, nor his father Alexander and his brother Mischa were there; Now, like a heartbroken loser and speaker, Zverev immediately thought of family.

He owed everything to his parents, Zverev said, “They were always with me, they were always there for me. But they couldn’t come, they both tested positive for Corona. Zverev’s voice failed twice and tears flowed. Then he simply said to the parents, “Thank you.”

For a brief moment he posed with the loser’s silver bowl in the finale for a photo with Thiem. Then he left, Thiem stayed on stage. Was over. What a day.

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Thiem Dominic

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