by Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Most players who win major tennis titles usually attribute their wins to their serve or a particular shot that came through in the clutch or perhaps a new coach in the their camp.
Alexander Zverev credited…. him cramping.
Just moments after the trophy ceremony after he won his first major singles title with a five-set win over Flavio Cobolli at Roland Garros, Zverev was asked by Jim Courier on American broadcast TNT how he was able to keep his nerve during his emotional journey in the final stages of his victory, especially after losing the fourth-set tiebreaker.
“What kind of helped me, it kind of helped me mentally that I was cramping a bit,” said Zverev. “I was cramping because of emotional effort. I wasn’t cramping because of physical effort. I haven’t cramped in probably 10 years, and I was very nervous, I was very kind of tightened up, and then once I cramped, I relaxed and that helped me, and I feel like I played better in the fifth set. I played more free, I played more aggressive, and today, I actually think that I want because of the cramps.”
Zverev led 3-1 with another service point coming in the fourth set tiebreaker leading two-sets to one and on the verge of his long-sought after first major singles title. However, cramps were settling into the German and he lost six of the next eight points to Cobolli to bring the match to a decisive fifth set. Zverev, who was 0-3 in major tournament finals entering the tournament, persisted and closed out the match by a 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-1 margin.
Courier, a two-time Roland Garros singles champion himself, later described how the cramping distraction can help take a players mind off the pressure of match and its implications.
“It’s like if you’ve got a bad problem with your ankle and you bang your thumb. You’re not thinking about your ankle anymore,” Courier said. “He had a head problem, and now all of a sudden, he’s thinking about ‘my body’ and ‘my legs’ and ‘can I actually move around and do the things’ instead of ‘Oh, my God, why can’t I move around and do things?’ So, in a way, it was the perfect distraction for him to get free.”
Cramps of a different sort to a different player also contributed to the Zverev victory as it was severe cramps the afflicted overwhelming tournament favorite and world No. 1 Jannik Sinner in his second-round loss in the tournament to Juan Manuel Cerundolo. Sinner led two-sets-to-love against Cerundolo and 5-1 in the third set before suffering from severe cramps and winning only two more games in the match.
With Sinner out of the tournament, combined with two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz out with an injury and 24-time major champion Novak Djokovic losing in the third round to Joao Fonseca, pressure was enormous on Zverev to take advantage of perhaps the best and only opportunity to win a major tournament with those all-time players out of the tournament.
“I felt like, throughout the two weeks, I was managing my emotions extremely well,” said Zverev. “I was playing well in important moments. I felt like today I didn’t. I was a lot more nervous. The match was a lot more up and down from my side, but at the end of the day, the most important thing was the fifth set, and I won that.”
