After playing for two weeks in a row, Alexander Zverev paid the price for fatigue against Roman Safiullin at the 2023 Shanghai Masters.
Alexander Zverev opted to play a lot of tennis in Asia in an attempt to gather a lot of points for the ATP Finals in Turin. Winning the event in Chengdu was a good step towards that, and he actually bested Safiullin in the final there.
Fast forward to now, and the Russian had no problems besting Zverev in two sets as the German struggled with fatigue. He admitted before the event that he was feeling tired, but the ATP Finals is a huge motivation for him, so he's going to keep pushing.
This loss is not ideal for Zverev as we don't have many ATP 1000 events on the calendar so this was a good chance to earn some big points but he couldn't overcome his opponent. Safiullin put together a really strong year so far.
The conditions in Shanghai suit him perfectly, which he demonstrated in the previous round when he bested Andy Murray. That win was followed up with this performance, where he essentially dominated from the start. He served really well the entire match and was strong with his forehand.
Zverev was pretty okay; he didn't completely crash here, even though the score is not pretty. He served okay and had a couple of aces, but he was completely overwhelmed in the rallies. There was very little pop in his shot and a very fatigued display from the German overall.
The final score was 6-3 6-1 for Safiullin, who moved on to face Ben Shelton, who won earlier today. That's a really strong matchup between two good players and should be fun. Zverev will look ahead to his next event, whether it's in Asia or indoors in Europe.
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