Alexander Zverev had to play a challenging first-round match at the 2023 Monte-Carlo Masters against Alexander Bublik.
Almost a year ago, everything changed for Zverev when he suffered from probably the worst injury in his career. Now, the German is back to the red dirt as he kicked off his campaign at the 2023 Monte-Carlo Masters and even when he started training on clay again, he joked about his relationship with the surface.
In the first set of the match, Zverev couldn't really find his top game but what was important was the fact that Bublik played exceptionally. The Kazakh hit 16 winners and made only three unforced errors and his serve was on fire too.
After breaking his opponent twice and being broken just once, Bublik won the first set 6-3 and looked to upset the 13th seed. But Zverev started strong in the second set.
He broke his opponent immediately and led 3-0 with a chance to add yet another break. But then, during one of the rallies, Zverev fell to the ground after a small tumble that surely reminded him of last year's Roland Garros.
Maybe also that was the reason why he let Bublik back in play in the next game as he got broken back. However, the German soon forgot the fall again and broke his opponent's serve twice more to win the second set 6-2.
In the third set, Bublik's struggles continued but especially, Zverev's level was really solid throughout the match and he never seemed to be thinking about a loss.
After two hours and two minutes, the tall German won the match 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 to set up a second-round meeting with Roberto Bautista Agut from Spain who has been struggling with form recently.
Talking about his opponent and how the match went overall in a post-match interview with the Tennis Channel, Zverev said:
"Everybody thinks that he's crazy, everybody thinks he's playing like he doesn't care, but I actually think that he plays tactically very well. Especially against players like myself, who needs rhythm, who needs to play a lot of balls to get into the match. I came out and he hit 28 drop shots in the first three games [laughing]."
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