"I tried to convince him to play" says Struff on Alexander Zverev

Zverev was loudly against the new format and he communicated many times how for him this is not the real Davis Cup. That along with the date of the event is the main reason why Zverev does not want to play at the event. He has expressed pride in representing Germany but he also underlined the need to rest after a very long season.

Without him, Germany had a very solid run losing out to Russia in the semifinals but with Zverev they could have done even more. Jan-Lennard Struff agrees with that as he revealed after the event that he tried to talk Zverev into playing:

"Yeah, I mean, of course, I talked to him, definitely. Of course, I tried to convince him to play definitely. We don't need to talk about Sascha's level. He's a top player. He would help the team 100% always. If he's in the team, we're a better team, better chances to win."

Struff further said:

"But he communicated it early enough that he's not going to play. It's one reason, as well, that I think he said enough for the reasons why he doesn't play. As well, he said that the date in the year was very late. It's kind of a problem right now because the year's very long. I go to holidays one week now and have, like, 10 days to prepare for next season, which is not very long. It's tough with the date. It's a lot of events. The season is very long."