The German number one loses to Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic.
German tennis star Alexander Zverev has suffered a bitter defeat. The Hamburg native, seeded number one, lost 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-7 (4-7) to Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic at the ATP tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, on Wednesday night, thus bowing out in the round of 16.
A good three weeks after his bitter semi-final defeat at the Australian Open, Zverev suffered another setback on the tour. Kecmanovic, ranked 84th in the world, converted his match point after 2 hours and 35 minutes.
Symptomatic of Zverev’s game: the 28-year-old ended the match with a backhand that got caught in the net – his 17th unforced error with his backhand that evening.
“Fantastic”: Zverev’s opponent rejoices
“He’s the big favorite, of course, so I wasn’t under any pressure,” said Kecmanovic, for whom it was his first ever victory against a top-five player: “It feels fantastic, especially after the difficult last few years.”
At the Australian Open in Melbourne at the end of January, Zverev narrowly missed out on the final in an epic five-set thriller against Carlos Alcaraz. The 28-year-old then took a break, traveled to Acapulco, where the tournament is still set to go ahead despite the violent unrest in Mexico, and put in several days of training. It was to no avail.
With Zverev’s defeat, the ATP 500 tournament in Acapulco, which is played on hard court and has a prize fund of $2.4 million, has already lost its three top seeds. On Monday, Australia’s Alex de Minaur (No. 2) was eliminated in the first round, and on Tuesday, Norway’s Casper Ruud (No. 3) was left empty-handed.
