Alexander Zverev speaks out after injury-hit French Open defeat to Dominic Thiem
ALEXANDER ZVEREV crashed out of the French Open after losing in straight sets to Dominic Thiem this afternoon, picking up a hamstring injury in the process.
The 21-year-old, who had played five sets in each of his three previous rounds, appeared to tweak a muscle in the first set against his Austrian rival and was unable to fully recover.
Thiem, 24, finished a 6-4 6-2 6-1 winner, booking his place in the semi-finals against the winner of Novak Djokovic’s last eight tie against unseeded Italian Marco Cecchinato.
Speaking to reporters after a disappointing loss today, German youngster Zverev said he would have his hamstring injury checked out before deciding on his immediate future.
“It's all very fresh. I'm going to take an MRI now after I'm done here,” he said.
“Most of the time, with muscle injuries or muscle pulls, you can only see something on an MRI if you take it two or three days after.
Middle of the second set, the pain was too much
“I’m going to go back home and definitely not do anything and see what it is.
“[The] first time I felt a pull was in the fourth game of the first set when we had, you know, a few great points, a lot of physical points.
“I remember I slid one time, and then I felt a muscle pull. I thought, ‘Well, okay. I played a lot’.
“I thought maybe it's just, like, soreness or something that would just go away. I didn't think about it too much.
“And then each game and each slide, I was getting worse and worse. Middle of the second set, the pain was too much.”
Despite picking up the injury early on in the match, the world No 3 said he refused to withdraw from the match out of respect for the occasion – and his opponent.
“I thought about it. I definitely thought about it, but, you know, I didn't want to pull out for the first time of my career in a Grand Slam quarterfinal,” Zverev continued.
“So, you know, I knew I'm not going to win the match. There was no way for me. I mean, I could barely move. I couldn't serve. I couldn't really do anything.
“But I still wanted to finish the match and, you know, kind of give the credit to Dominic. He deserves to be in the semi-finals.”