Alexander Zverev has put together a really solid comeback season so far, and he hopes to keep it going at the 2023 Vienna Open.
Zverev played the best tennis of his career last year when disaster struck. A terrible injury at Roland Garros left him hopeless, and he missed the rest of the year. The return was painful, as he revealed in a recent ATP Tennis Radio Podcast interview.
The level wasn't there early in the year, and there were many disappointments and pain that he was trying to manage. Luckily, as that stopped, so did his level increase, and we've seen how well he's played in recent months.
I think for me it’s just being healthy. I think at the beginning of the year I was still managing pain, I was still dealing with pain. I was not moving the way I wanted to move, I was not sliding around the court, if you look back at the matches that I played.
It was more that for me. If you want to be competitive at this sport you have to be 100 per cent healthy, you need to be moving the way you want to on the tennis court. For me to be able to do that, I need to be pain-free.
The Asian swing was pretty good for Zverev as he won a trophy in Chengdu which greatly improved his chances of making the ATP Finals in Turin which is the goal. A small push in the next two weeks is all that's needed for him to be there and he's going to give it his all.
I’m playing good tennis and I’m winning tournaments again which is the most important thing. I’m a contender. That’s something I missed at the beginning of the year, when I didn’t feel like I was. I’m back to the same mentality of winning tournaments and the same mentality of trying to be one of the best.
If I make Turin, if I come back after such an injury and not playing for seven months when I was really uncertain if I was ever going to come back to the level that I was… If I come back and I’m one of the best eight players in the world, it’s a great achievement, there’s no question about it. It’s a comeback year to remember, that’s for sure.
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