Zverev confident his game is coming good, despite loss to Cerundolo in Madrid
The German reached the Australian Open final and won the title in Munich but has generally been inconsistent this year
Alexander Zverev (Imago/PSNewz)
Alexander Zverev‘s up and down season continued on Tuesday when he was beaten by Francisco Cerundolo in the third round of the Madrid Masters but the German is still confident his game is heading in the right direction as he strives for that elusive first Grand Slam title.
The world No 3 reached the Australian Open final in January, then struggled for form in the months that followed before winning the title in Munich last week, only to find Cerundolo – for the third time in three meetings – too good on the day.
Zverev put his defeat in Madrid down to the match-up and the fact that the Argentinian played well, not to any deficiencies in his game.
“In the end of the day, I don’t think I played terrible,” he said. “The match(es) before Munich, when I was losing, I was losing because of me. I was losing because I was playing bad and I was missing and I was maybe not brave enough.
“I cannot really say that today. Maybe I played one bad game at 6-5 in the first set, but this is one game per match, you know, this can happen.
“All in all, I feel like my game is improving, and I feel like there is not too much wrong with my game. I just feel like that today my opponent was better than me, and this can happen in sport.”
Zverev defending his title in Rome
Victory in Munich went a long way to restoring his confidence and he is looking forward to next week’s Rome Masters, where he is the defending champion.
“I won a title already, right, so I can’t really say that I’m not feeling comfortable on the surface,” he said. “So, we’ll see, but, I mean, I still feel confident about the next few weeks going forward.”
