{"id":425100,"date":"2025-09-15T01:44:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T01:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/425100\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T01:44:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T01:44:22","slug":"the-reason-why-alexander-zverev-refused-to-represent-germany-in-the-davis-cup-in-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/425100\/","title":{"rendered":"The reason why Alexander Zverev refused to represent Germany in the Davis Cup in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alexander Zverev was one of the notable absences from the Davis Cup again this week.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zverev had a disappointing US Open<\/a>, after being knocked out in the third round by Felix Auger-Aliassime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This has continued a mixed season for the world number three, who has struggled to find the same sort of form that helped Zverev reach the Australian Open final<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n

Zverev<\/a> was also not part of Germany\u2019s latest Davis Cup<\/a> squad, bringing previous comments he made about the competition back to light.<\/p>\n

\"AlexanderPhoto by Martin Rose\/Getty ImagesAlexander Zverev refused to represent Germany in the Davis Cup in 2021<\/p>\n

Zverev is by far Germany\u2019s highest-ranked ATP<\/a> player at the moment, being ranked 47 places ahead of the second-best player in Daniel Altmaier.<\/p>\n

However, he was not part of the Germany squad for their most recent qualifier against Japan in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Zverev has not competed in the Davis Cup since 2023, but that was only following a U-turn he made on previous comments.<\/p>\n

The now three-time Grand Slam finalist had played five ties between 2016 and 2019, with the latter being the year that the format of the Davis Cup was changed.<\/p>\n

This saw a significant reduction in the number of the classic home-and-away ties, and instead having one venue for the latter stages of the event called the Davis Cup Finals.<\/p>\n

After this change was made, Zverev was a no-show and in 2021 he explained that he would not be competing in the new format, and only wanted to play the \u2018real Davis Cup\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe format has to be changed and I\u2019m sticking to that,\u201d Zverev told media<\/a> before the Vienna Open in 2021. \u201cI am someone who keeps his word. I want to win the Davis Cup, but I want to win the real Davis Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zverev did make a U-turn on this decision just a year later, competing in Germany\u2019s qualifier tie against Brazil, but is still yet to compete in the Davis Cup Finals tie.<\/p>\n

Despite his absence, Germany have still comfortably qualified for the Davis Cup Finals this year, with Jan-Lennard Struff, Yannick Hanfmann, Justin Engel and the doubles pairing of Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz beating Japan 4-0.<\/p>\n

The Davis Cup has recently moved back towards the original format, with more home-and-away ties and it would be interesting to see whether Zverev will now consider playing in the competition for the first time since 2023.<\/p>\n

What is next for Alexander Zverev after skipping the Davis Cup?<\/p>\n

Ironically, after Zverev has elected to miss the Davis Cup, his next scheduled event will be in a team format when he represents Team Europe at the Laver Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Frances Tiafoe\u2019s<\/a> withdrawal has confirmed that Zverev will make more Laver Cup history<\/a> ahead of his sixth appearance at the event.<\/p>\n

Zverev will be the second-highest ranked player on Team Europe this year, as he is joined by Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, Holger Rune<\/a>, Casper Ruud<\/a>, Jakub Mensik<\/a> and Flavio Cobolli<\/a> for the Laver Cup in San Francisco, which takes place between September 19-21.<\/p>\n

The next individual ATP tournament on Zverev\u2019s schedule is the China Open<\/a>, where world number two Jannik Sinner will play his first tournament after the US Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zverev will then remain in China for the Shanghai Masters, where he reached the final in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev was one of the notable absences from the Davis Cup again this week. Zverev had a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[4721,4294,81576,2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-425100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-alexander-zverev","9":"tag-atp","10":"tag-davis-cup","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115205784746930476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}