Alexander Zverev has spoken about his path back from injury this season after he recently achieved some impressive results on the ATP Tour.
The former World No. 2 was forced to skip the second half of the 2022 season due to a serious ankle injury. He then spent the first few months of 2023 re-adjusting to the top tiers of the sport, losing six of his first nine Tour-level matches.
However, the 26-year-old has since made an impressive comeback, winning the Hamburg European Open in July 2023 before lifting the trophy at the Chengdu Open in the fall. Zverev is currently seventh in the race to the Nitto ATP Finals and is hoping for a deep run at the Vienna Open this week to help him toward qualification for the prestigious season-ending championship, where he emerged victorious in 2018 and 2021.
"If I make Turin, if I come back after such an injury and not playing for seven months when I was really uncertain if I was ever going to come back to the level that I was… If I come back and I’m one of the best eight players in the world, it’s a great achievement, there’s no question about it. It’s a comeback year to remember, that’s for sure," Zverev told ATP Broadcast Radio.
The German player then went on to detail how he has re-gained his level and his confidence throughout the season.
"I think for me it’s just being healthy," said Zverev. "I think at the beginning of the year I was still managing pain, I was still dealing with pain. I was not moving the way I wanted to move, I was not sliding around the court, if you look back at the matches that I played. It was more that for me.
"If you want to be competitive at this sport you have to be 100 per cent healthy, you need to be moving the way you want to on the tennis court. For me to be able to do that, I need to be pain-free," he continued.
Nevertheless, Zverev also shared some positives that he had experienced while working to overcome his injury.
"I think you really appreciate the sport of tennis. You really appreciate the tough days, the fun days. You just appreciate being out there on the court, when it gets taken away from you. Most players realise that once they quit tennis because they don’t have this period, this injury. I realised it earlier on, so I’m thankful for that, but I want to get back to where I was.
"I didn’t want the injury to happen, obviously, but it did make me grow, it did make me realise what tennis actually means. If I’m back to the level, if I win Grand Slams and become World No. 1, maybe I’ll look back and say ‘It was all worth it'."
Zverev says his brutal injury against Rafa Nadal at Roland Garros made him grateful: “After an injury like that, you really appreciate the hard days, the fun days. You enjoy being on the court. Most players realize this once they stop playing tennis because they have not…
