Alexander Zverev came up short against Daniil Medvedev in his opening match at the Nitto ATP Finals, falling to the Russian for the second time in just over a week.
Having lost in the final of Paris Masters eight days ago, the German was denied a chance for revenge on Monday when both men met in their first group match. Medvedev prevailed easily in straight sets, although Zverev later revealed he did not play up to expectations.
"My serve was not quite there today,” Zverev assessed, having hit seven double faults during their encounter. “All in all, it wasn't a good match for me. I think since the restart of the season, it was one of the worst ones."
Nonetheless, the World No.7 admitted Medvedev was the better player that day, even conceding that the Russian's unexpected underarm serve took him by surprise.
"Credit to Daniil. He did what he needed to do. I mean, the underarm serve paid off for him. Great job to him… I think maybe he was a little bit nervous in the beginning, but then he picked up his level. But, yeah, it was not good enough to beat a Top 10 player today from my side.”
Having fallen to 0-1 in Group Tokyo 1970, Zverev must defeat Diego Schwartzman and Novak Djokovic in order to ensure qualification from the group. Djokovic defeated Schwartzman earlier in the day and stands atop the group with Medvedev, as both men have 1-0 records.
“I mean, Novak was Novak. He dominates,” Zverev said. “But I need to look at myself. I need to play better. I need to be better on court. Because if I play like today, I'm not going to win any matches here this week."
"Now I can't afford to lose. I need to beat Diego, I need to beat Djokovic to have a chance to go to the semi-finals. I'm going to try to do that. But with how I played today, it's going to be difficult to do.”
Click here for live scores and up-to-date results of the ATP Finals.
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