'I felt a bit lost out there': Alexander Zverev opens up about impact of heartbreaking Australian Open final defeat

Germany’s Alexander Zverev has opened up about how difficult it was for him to overcome the defeat in the final at the Australian Open earlier this year. The 28-year-old suffered a defeat to Italy’s Jannik in the final of the first Grand Slam of the year in straight sets with a score of 6–3, 7–6(7–4), 6–3.

It was the third time Zverev ended up losing the final of a Grand Slam. He came second-best against Dominic Thiem in the final of the US Open in 2020. Four years later, he lost in the final of the French Open to Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz.

Zverev’s next competition will be Wimbledon 2025, where he will open his campaign with a match against Arthur Rinderknech on Monday. Talking ahead of the competition, Zverev admitted that it took him a while to accept how inferior he was on the day compared to Sinner. Zverev stated that he went into the match hoping to lift his first major title, but Sinner was just too hot to handle. Zverev also admitted that it was his mistake not to give him time to recover from that defeat, which showed in the results that followed.

“It did take me a while to get over it because I really went into the match and I thought, I can win this, I’m going to win,” said Zverev while speaking to Tennis365. “Then very quickly, I felt like, well, he’s out playing me on every single aspect. So I felt a bit lost out there at times. Jannik was above everyone else the entire tournament and there was nothing else to say, but after that, I made some mistakes. I think I overplayed. I didn’t give myself, my body and my mind time to accept what happened. I just carried on playing and kind of had a little bit of a burnout in the middle of the season. It was too much. Some stupid decisions from my end and I paid the price for them, but that is in the past now. I’m at Wimbledon now, I’m feeling good and I’m looking forward to this tournament.”