{"id":422862,"date":"2026-01-19T08:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/422862\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T08:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:11:15","slug":"zverev-rallies-to-win-first-round-match-at-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/422862\/","title":{"rendered":"Zverev rallies to win first-round match at Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Third-seeded Alexander Zverev<\/a> shrugged off a sluggish start to power through his first-round match against rising star Gabriel Diallo<\/a> as the Australian Open got underway Sunday.<\/p>\n

Zverev, the runner-up at Melbourne Park last year, slumped in the first set against the 24-year-old Canadian before rallying on the back of his strong serve to win 6-7 (7), 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 on Rod Laver Arena. He is into the second round at Melbourne Park for the 10th straight year.<\/p>\n

“Definitely when I saw the draw, wasn’t too happy to be honest,” Zverev said in an on-court interview, speaking of the tricky challenge presented by No. 41-ranked Diallo. “He’s very young, very talented. Unbelievably aggressive.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n

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“First set wasn’t my best tennis, I would say. I was thinking, ‘can’t get worse than that.” It got a lot better after that for me.”<\/p>\n

No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, who is bidding to complete the career Grand Slam, saw off Australia’s Adam Walton<\/a> 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-2.<\/p>\n

No. 20 Flavio Cobolli<\/a> became the first of the seeded men’s players to exit the tournament in a 7-6 (7), 6-4, 6-1 loss to British qualifier Arthur Fery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No. 10 Alexander Bublik<\/a> advanced over Jenson Brooksby<\/a> 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, No. 18 seed Francisco Cerundolo<\/a> beat Zhang Zhizhen<\/a> 6-3, 7-6 (0), No. 29 Frances Tiafoe<\/a> overpowered Jason Kubler<\/a> 7-6 (4), 6-3, 6-2, and Michael Zheng<\/a> fended off Sebastian Korda<\/a> 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (0), 6-3 in an all-American first-rounder.<\/p>\n

Zheng, a college star at Columbia who advanced through qualifying to make his tour-level debut, will next face No. 32 Corentin Moutet<\/a>, who was booed after his underarm serve on match point in a 6-4, 7-6 (1), 6-3 win over Tristan Schoolkate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Third-seeded Alexander Zverev shrugged off a sluggish start to power through his first-round match against rising star Gabriel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-422862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}