Alexander Zverev suffered a nasty fall late in his match at the 2023 ATP Finals against Carlos Alcaraz, seemingly injuring his ankle, and he spoke about it after the win.
Zverev had an interesting season so far but also one that went without any injury concerns. After suffering a terrible ankle injury last year, Zverev was glad to have played the entire year without an injury.
It almost happened again, as he seemingly twisted his ankle during his first match of the 2023 ATP Finals. It didn't look good initially because Zverev screamed after it happened and clutched his ankle immediately.
He got up pretty quickly but grimaced painfully as he walked it off. The match continued, and Zverev finished it off, beating Carlos Alcaraz, and seemingly being fine. Time will tell best, but according to the German, he did not twist his ankle fully.
I didn't twist my ankle. I knew exactly that I didn't twist my ankle. I kind of just, yeah, slipped in a way. I slipped through and kind of maybe pinched my Achilles, my capsule a little bit. It was just that. Hopefully it's nothing too major and hopefully I can continue playing.
Reporters pushed Zverev more towards a clarification of what really happened, and he provided by admitting that he simply slipped and didn't really fully twist. That's a pretty fortunate thing because a full twist could have been catastrophic.
Both ankles went through the same motion. I overstretched it, I kind of pinched it. It was both ankles. But as I said, I didn't twist it. I slipped. There was pain for a minute, minute and a half, like a nerve kind of when you hit your elbow and the nerve... Something like that. It wasn't a nice feeling, but I knew that I was going to be okay.