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Paris: German Alexander Zverev, who suffered an ankle injury that prevented him from completing his match against Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals of the Roland Garros tournament, the second Grand Slam in tennis, revealed that he suffers from a “very serious injury”, without specifying it.
Zverev posted a video clip on social media late Friday evening, in which he said, “It seems that the injury is very severe, but the doctors are still analyzing it.”
Zverev suffered a sprain in his ankle while trying to save one of Nadal’s balls and screamed in pain before the paramedic intervened and exited the field in a wheelchair, before returning on crutches to announce his official withdrawal from the match, which was referring to Nadal’s progress in a first set after a playoff round 7. -6 (10-8) and 6-6 per second.
The match was a sparring between the players in which Zverev squandered his lead in the deciding round 6-2 before the Spaniard turned things in his favor in a set that lasted 98 minutes, and the scenario was similar in the second set, where the two players exchanged breaks for each other more than once before the injury of the German and his withdrawal.
Zverev commented on the match, saying, “A difficult moment on the field, the match was great until what happened, this moment is not easy for me.”
Asked if the very humid conditions that forced the organizers to close the pitch made the pitch slippery, Nadal replied: “I don’t think so. The pitch wasn’t bad. I don’t think he sprained his ankle because of that. It’s just that he wasn’t lucky.” It was an accident, this thing gets all over the place.”
He added, “It is very hard for him, I am sad for him, he was playing an amazing tournament, I know very well that he is fighting to win the Grand Slam, he was not lucky, but I am sure that he will be crowned a champion in the future, not one title but more than that.”
Nadal reached the final of Roland Garros on his 36th birthday and is seeking to boost his record in the French capital and raise it to 14 titles when he faces Norway’s Casper Ruud on Sunday.