Another upset at Wimbledon: Alexander Zverev suffers painful first-round exit to Arthur Rinderknech

Alexander Zverev suffered a painful defeat in his Wimbledon opener against Arthur Rinderknech, falling 6-7(3), 7-6(8), 3-6, 7-6(5), 4-6 in a tough first-round battle. The German faces another failure at SW19, the Grand Slam tournament that has been the least kind to him in his career.

However, this defeat will be particularly painful for the German, as it's the first time since 2019 that he's been eliminated in the first round of a Grand Slam. Since then, he had a streak of 20 appearances winning his opening match, and in 18 of those, he reached at least the fourth round.

It was a rollercoaster of a match that was close to reaching 15 hours. Rinderknech took a tight first set in the tie-break, while in the second, it was Zverev who came out on top in the tie-break—this time saving two set points against him.

The first break of the match didn't come until the third set, where Rinderknech took the lead and held onto his serve to win the set 6-3, securing a second break towards the end. The Frenchman was on the verge of victory when he was up 4-1 in the fourth-set tie-break, but Zverev managed to fight back into the match—winning six of the next seven points—and took the set 7-6(5), sending it to a decisive fifth.

This time, the three-time Grand Slam finalist once again showed doubts on serve. In the third game, Rinderknech seized his first opportunity and got the break. He then just needed to hold his serve and close out the set 6-4 to secure his spot in the second round, notably becoming the third top-10 elimination in the opening round. In the second round, Rinderknech will face lucky loser Cristian Garin, a quarterfinalist at the tournament in 2022.