{"id":62980,"date":"2026-09-02T09:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/62980\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T09:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T09:25:12","slug":"top-seeded-zverev-rallies-to-avoid-first-round-exit-at-us-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/62980\/","title":{"rendered":"Top-seeded Zverev rallies to avoid first-round exit at US Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Alexander Zverev rallied just in time to avoid becoming the first men\u2019s No. 1 seed to lose in the first round of a Grand Slam tournament since 2003, edging Lorenzo Sonego 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-5, 6-4 in a U.S. Open<\/a> match that ended Wednesday morning. <\/p>\n

Zverev couldn\u2019t cash in on repeated chances to break Sonego\u2019s serve for much of the night and was in danger of becoming the first top-seeded man to fall in his first match in a major since Ivo Karlovic beat Lleyton Hewitt at Wimbledon in 2003.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t happened at the U.S. Open since Stefan Edberg lost to Alexander Volkov in 1990. Zverev finally broke through against Sonego\u2019s serve late to pull out the match in 4 hours, 52 minutes. <\/p>\n

\u201cNearly five hours for a first round, I think this is the longest first-round match I\u2019ve ever played in my life,\u201d Zverev said. \u201cSo, credit to him. He played amazing tennis today, would have beaten a lot of players for sure, but I\u2019m happy to be through.\u201d <\/p>\n

Zverev won his first major title at the French Open, lost to top-ranked Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon final, then became the No. 1 seed in a major for the first time when Sinner had to withdraw<\/a> from the U.S. Open with a right knee injury. <\/p>\n

Zverev is 7-0 against Sonego, an Italian who came in 1-9 against top-10 men in Grand Slams. But Sonego\u2019s speed around the court allowed him to track down balls that on other nights would have been winners, and he came up with enough clutch serves to make Zverev just 5 for 22 on break points for the match. <\/p>\n

The German broke when Sonego served for the third set at 5-4 and seemed to be in good shape in the tiebreaker when he hit consecutive serves of 133 mph and 141 mph to take a 7-6 lead. Sonego won the next two points to take the lead and Zverev then double-faulted to end the set. <\/p>\n

Zverev then broke for a 3-2 lead in the fourth set, but Sonego raced from corner to corner of the court in the next game to break right back. Sonego then got within two points from winning the match with a 5-4 lead, but Zverev held serve and then broke to go ahead 6-5.<\/p>\n

Sonego had his hand or wrist checked before the start of the final set. He appeared OK afterward but Zverev got the break he needed to grab a 3-2 lead and stayed ahead from there. <\/p>\n

Zverev advanced to face Quentin Halys in the second round, and the 2020 U.S. Open runner-up wasn\u2019t disappointed that he needed to work so hard to get there.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually I\u2019m happy that I won this kind of battle because this exactly the match that I needed,\u201d he said. \u201cI struggled the last two tournaments, I didn\u2019t play well and sometimes good things happen after you fight through one of these matches. So I\u2019m hoping that will be the case for me at this tournament.\u201d <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Alexander Zverev rallied just in time to avoid becoming the first men\u2019s No. 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[24380,243,10466,219,5202,8228,5991,84,2034,1644,50,13348,28,1646,463,285,1996],"class_list":["post-62980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us-open","tag-alexander-volkov","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-ivo-karlovic","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-lleyton-hewitt","tag-lorenzo-sonego","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-quentin-halys","tag-sports","tag-stefan-edberg","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open-tennis-championships","tag-us-open","tag-wimbledon","tag-wimbledon-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}