Fourth set, Zverev serving, big first serve, Ben Shelton misses. End of the US Open. Second Grand Slam title for Zverev, after Roland-Garros this year.
Except he did not see it coming. The announcer was already calling his win over the microphone while he was still working out where the match stood. He thought he was leading 5-1, he was serving at 6-1.
“I thought it was 5-1. […] I knew I had broken him twice, but I thought I was at 5 instead of 6, which helped me in a way because I wasn’t really stressed about serving for the match. I just got the score wrong,” he said.
Right, technically, that is exactly what happens to me. Two breaks in the set, you change ends, you drink, you go again, and in your head you’re a game behind. That thing, I do it. Not every time, but I do it. The difference is that in club league — interclubs, Belgium’s weekend team league — when you call 5-1 and the bloke opposite calls 1-5, nobody has an announcer to settle it. You replay the game and you lose an hour.
The other half of the explanation is noise. Zverev said he did not hear the umpire call “game, set and match”: “I was in the moment. I was in my bubble. I didn’t hear the noise around me at all. I was in a kind of tunnel where I couldn’t hear anything. And the crowd was loud, so there was no way to hear the umpire. I didn’t hear her say game, set and match.”
The bubble, I know it. On a Sunday, on court 4, you’re in your zone, you have your intentions, you see nothing else. The crowd noise though, with us, that’s the captain ordering the sausage rolls at the bar. The level in club league has gone way up, people don’t realise.
Zverev let it out a few seconds later, once the count was back in order.
It’s true, we checked: DH Les Sports+.
