It’s been a year, and yet the reporter still shuddered when he recalled the scene.
It was semi-final day at Roland Garros 2022, and Nadal-Zverev was a volcano. 3 hours and 10 minutes of play had passed, things were going on forever, the audience was snaking into the stands.
Every point, a party.
Christmas was 36 years ago, but Zverev was not ready to give birthday presents. The manacorà had suffered a lot to win the first leg in the tie-break, and survived as best he could in the second.
Zverev was an untamable thoroughbred.
Zverev reached everything, he stretched like a piece of gum and served like a miracle, he played like angels. Two days earlier he had swept Carlos Alcaraz, and now it was torment for Nadal, who was fighting and fighting, but it was not clear to him.
Nadal was running out of fuel.
In the second set, the score was tied at 6-6, and then everything went wrong: Zverev faltered, twisted his right ankle and collapsed on the clay, long, he, with two meters of height.
The parish had heard the snap of the ankle, the chronicler had heard it too, and the German’s cries of pain echoed through the grounds and silenced the dripping of the Paris afternoon, or evening, as the match had gone into the twilight
The stretcher was taken by Zverev, who disappeared from the scene and reappeared a quarter of an hour later, on crutches, with a long face, to say goodbye to the parish, and Nadal, therefore, reached the final, via free to the 14th crown at Roland Garros, end of the date.
The German had broken the lateral ligaments of his right foot, this was where his 2022 ended, the injury was very serious, it would paralyze him for months.
(…)
In the autumn, Zverev decided to fight against oblivion: he ran several videos on social networks. He was seen sitting in a wheelchair, at the foot of the court, hitting a two-handed backhand, preparing for the return.
He returned in January, at the Australian United Cup. He had fallen ten places in the ranking: from number 2 to 12. He lost to Lehecka and to Fritz. Zverev was now a runaway tennis player. He only spent one round at the Australian Open, he didn’t grow in Indian Wells, nor in Miami.
Diminished in game and self-esteem, the German has been floundering on clay, and has grown little by little as the engagements progressed, OK in Madrid, better in Rome and even better in Geneva (he lost in the semifinals), to return to Roland Garros, the scene of his misfortune, perhaps the scene of his redemption.
Yesterday, Sasha Zverev reappeared in the Bois de Boulogne to sweep Lloyd Harris (7-6 (6), 7-6 (0) and 6-1), overcome the demons and reach the second round, where the Slovak awaits Alex Molcan.
He did it several hours before the unknown Thiago Seyboth Wild (Brazilian who came from the preliminary phase, no one would have said it because of his tennis, 172nd in the world for now) invested 4h 15m to remove from the court Daniïl Medvédev, second racket World Cup (7-6 (5), 6-7 (6), 2-6, 6-3 and 6-4), there were no surprises of the day: so far, Seyboth Wild – headband, vintage mustache – had never won a set in the main draw of a Grand Slam.
