1 Response to ao25zverev_djokovic

1. Voo de Mar says:

   September 10, 2026 at 7:25 pm

   Points won by each set: | 49-43… |
   Unreturned serves:
   36 % Zverev – 14 of 38
   27 % Djokovic – 15 of 54

   It was a brutal set in the heat – the average rally of the tournament was 3.46, Djokovic [7] and Zverev [2] elevated to 4.41 despite standard numbers of points won directly behind the serve. The German had his break points at 1-all and 4-all, the Serb led 40/0 on Zverev’s serve at 2:1 – the German needed three overheads to stave off the last one. In the tie-break he trailed *4:5 – unreturned serve & FH winner in an 11th stroke of the rally meant a set point: Djokovic attacked the net with a very good approach-shot and netted an easy FH volley. A moment later he shook his hands with Zverev, the crowd was stunned because the Serb hadn’t taken any medical time-out. He began the contest with a heavily strapped left thigh though, and decided it was serious enough to deprive him of chances to win the match after losing the long opener. “I actually thought it was quite a high-level first set,” Zverev said. “The tiebreak he wasn’t moving as well as earlier in the first set. We had physical rallies, [but] in the tiebreak I did see him struggle a bit more.” That match exposed for the first time a big problem for the greatest player of all-time which would bother him for another two years – his body didn’t allow him to play at the highest level after five matches in the ‘best of five’ format within two weeks… The second major semifinal of the decade finished with a retirement; the previous one, three years before also involved Zverev (French Open ’22), but that time he was a victim of an injury.

   Serve & volley: Zverev 0, Djokovic 0/2

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