{"id":46122,"date":"2022-02-02T10:26:40","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T15:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=46122"},"modified":"2022-02-02T10:26:40","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T15:26:40","slug":"alexander-zverev-bounce-back-montpellier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/02\/02\/alexander-zverev-bounce-back-montpellier\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev Should Bounce Back Well in Montpellier After Disappointing Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having entered the Australian Open as one of the favorites<\/a>, Alexander Zverev was undoubtedly disappointed with an exit in the Round of 16. The last time he had played a hard court Slam that didn\u2019t include Novak Djokovic, at the US Open in 2020, he reached the final<\/a>. Add to that a strong 2021 that included an Olympic Gold Medal<\/a>, as well as entering the tournament riding his career-high ranking of #3 in the world, and Zverev surely felt like a great opportunity lay before him to break into the ranks of Slam champions. However, a surprising straight-sets loss to Denis Shapovalov has left him needing to regroup, and he gets his first chance to bounce back in Montpellier.<\/p>\n

Alexander Zverev at the Upcoming ATP Montpellier<\/h3>\n

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Wild Card, Highest Seed<\/h4>\n

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Zverev has received a wild card entry<\/a> into the ATP 250 event, after Felix Auger-Aliassime recently withdrew. Zverev faces a field that does not include any other Top 10 players, the highest-ranking opponents being Roberto Bautista Agut and Gael Monfils, at #18 and #20 respectively. One never wants to say \u201cThis should be an easy win for Zverev,\u201d but a Top 3 player gracing a 250 event feels like a tune-up, and a cruise through the final is certainly the expectation.<\/p>\n

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One Match, Two Losses<\/h4>\n

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Zverev was actually in range of two milestones entering the Australian Open. Not only was the possibility of a first Major before him, owing especially to the absence of nine-time champion Djokovic<\/a>, but a win in Melbourne would have boosted Zverev from #3 in the world right up to the top. Zverev would have won 2000 points for the event, and Djokovic earned zero for not playing. (This means that Djokovic will lose his 2000 for last year\u2019s victory in February, one year from the end of last year\u2019s tournament). That 4000-point swing<\/a> would have put Zverev at #1 in the world. For a young player who has for several years been expected to win Slams and challenge the Big Three, this would have been a double monkey off his back, and a huge boost in confidence. Missing that opportunity must be discouraging.<\/p>\n

However, Zverev\u2019s loss at the US Open in 2020, which would certainly have been more jarring than this one, should serve as a template for expectations. He bounced back, continued rising up the rankings, and won Olympic Gold the following year. His career trajectory is still trending up, and he beat just about everyone in the world last year. (I\u2019d list names, but it would be easier to say “basically everyone in the Top 50.”) This loss surely hurts, but it\u2019s hard to imagine he doesn\u2019t regroup quickly. Montpellier should be the first foothold.<\/p>\n

Main Photo from Getty.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having entered the Australian Open as one of the favorites, Alexander Zverev was undoubtedly disappointed with an exit in the Round of 16. The last time he had played a hard court Slam that didn\u2019t include Novak Djokovic, at the US Open in 2020, he reached the final. Add to that a strong 2021 that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4072,"featured_media":39933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,9],"tags":[85,4603,17237],"class_list":["post-46122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-news","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-atp-montpellier","tag-atp-open-sud-de-france"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4072"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}