{"id":42231,"date":"2025-08-03T13:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T13:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/42231\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T13:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T13:48:08","slug":"alexander-zverev-reveals-what-extremely-upset-francisco-cerundolo-told-him-before-retiring-from-their-match-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/42231\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev reveals what &#8216;extremely upset&#8217; Francisco Cerundolo told him before retiring from their match in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Alexander Zverev has advanced to the quarterfinals at the Canadian Open after his opponent, Francisco Cerundolo, was forced to retire due to injury. <\/p>\n<p>The German was leading in the match by a set and a game, but Cerundolo, suffering from abdominal pain, put a halt to the contest. <\/p>\n<p>In their three previous clashes, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/news\/alexander-zverev-keeps-telling-one-atp-player-he-feels-he-cant-beat-him-whenever-they-see-each-other\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cerundolo was undefeated against Zverev<\/a>, beating him twice in Madrid and once in Buenos Aires. <\/p>\n<p>But in their first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/atp\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ATP<\/a> meeting on hard court, the Argentine was in too much discomfort to finish the match, and exchanged words with the world number three before retiring. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2227588527-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Francisco Cerundolo reacts while playing against Alexander Zverev in Toronto.\" \/>Photo by Mert Alper Dervis\/Anadolu via Getty ImagesWhat Francisco Cerundolo told Alexander Zverev before retiring<\/p>\n<p>Speaking after the match, <a href=\"http:\/\/v\" rel=\"nofollow\">Zverev<\/a> said of Cerundolo: \u201cHe\u2019s an incredible player, but he\u2019s an incredible person. I have a very close and good relationship with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw that he\u2019s extremely upset at five-four, and of course, I know that [with] an abdominal injury, you can\u2019t serve, you can\u2019t really accelerate on your forehand, and there\u2019s nothing much you can do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I saw that, you know, he almost had tears in his eyes and I wanted to just talk to him and he said that the only reason he wants to keep playing is for the people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI told him, look, man, sometimes you\u2019ve got to take care of yourself, because, you know, an abdominal injury can go very quickly from a few days to a few months, and I definitely don\u2019t want to see him out for a few months.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI definitely want to see him on tour and do well because he\u2019s having an incredible season. I have so much respect for him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s an incredible guy. He beat me three times before that, and I don\u2019t have a single bad word to say about him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2227588683-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Francisco Cerundolo is seen during a break in his match with Alexander Zverev at the Canadian Open.\" \/>Photo by Mathew Tsang\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>After the walkover, Cerundolo took to social media to send a message to the fans at the Canadian Open. <\/p>\n<p>He posted on his Instagram story: \u201cI\u2019m sorry @nbotoronto, tried my best tonight but couldn\u2019t continue. Thanks to everyone for the support. <\/p>\n<p>Cerundolo had beaten Jaume Munar and Tomas Martin Etcheverry to reach the fourth round of the tournament. <\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old was looking to make it to his eighth Masters 1000 quarterfinal, and first in Toronto. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev has advanced to the quarterfinals at the Canadian Open after his opponent, Francisco Cerundolo, was forced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[6774,6733,49,48,17581,2583,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-42231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-alexander-zverev","9":"tag-atp","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-canadian-open","13":"tag-francisco-cerundolo","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}