Alexander Zverev lost his fourth-round match at the Australian Open as well as his cool, pummeling his racket in an incredible meltdown Monday.
Trailing Milos Raonic by a set and 4-1, the fourth-ranked German took out his frustration while at his chair by slamming his racket to the court eight times before casting it aside.
Carlos Ramos – who officiated last year’s contentious women’s final at the US Open between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka – had no choice but to give the 21-year-old a warning for racket abuse.
Zverev had made the best possible start by breaking the potent Raonic serve in the first game – only to set the tone for the rest of the match by losing serve in the next game.
Zverev was guilty of 10 double faults and won a mere 35% of his second-serve points.
The racket destruction was reminiscent of Marcos Baghdatis’ epic takedown of four rackets at a change of ends in Melbourne in 2012 when he faced Stan Wawrinka. One video of that incident on YouTube has been viewed more than 2.6 million times.
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Hits of Zverev’s temper tantrum are sure to pile up, too.
Queried about it afterward, Zverev, a 6-1 6-1 7-6 (7-5) loser to the 2016 Wimbledon finalist in a mild upset, told reporters: “It made me feel better. I was very angry, so I let my anger out.”
When asked in a follow-up if he often smashes his racket, the Hamburg native replied: “You never watched my matches? You should watch my matches.”
Struggling in slams
Zverev has broken rackets in the past – and at the grand slams continues to struggle to match his impressive ATP results. He’s only made one major quarterfinal, and in 2018 had to save a match point to beat his first top-50 player at a major.
In exiting to Raonic, he has yet to get the better of a top-20 player at a major despite winning the World Tour Finals in November, defeating the likes of Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic to do so.
He said he felt a shorter off-season, because of his success in London, played a part in Monday’s result at Rod Laver Arena.
“Right now I’m not happy, but I’m not depressed, either,” said Zverev.
“It’s fine. It’s a tennis match. I have learned to take tennis matches as tennis matches and not the end of the world. If I would think it’s the end of the world every time I lose a tennis match, I would be very depressed about 15 to 20 times a year.
“So I’m not going to do that.”
The outing came a day after his fellow ‘Next Gen’ star, Stefanos Tsitsipas, stunned two-time defending champion Federer.