Japan Open title<\/a> and building momentum after a lengthy wrist injury layoff, Alcaraz never found his rhythm in a scrappy two-hour, two-minute contest on Monday.<\/p>\nThe second-seeded Spaniard, who \u2060was sidelined for nearly five months before returning at the US Open in late August and reaching the quarterfinals, joined 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic and US Open runner-up Ben Shelton among the high-profile casualties at the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Masters 1000 event.<\/p>\n
Bergs produced a composed all-court performance, thriving in the quick conditions as the 27-year-old broke Alcaraz\u2019s serve three times to clinch the \u200cbiggest victory of his career.<\/p>\n
Bergs had lost their only previous meeting, falling to Alcaraz in the last 16 of last year\u2019s Japan Open, but showed no signs of intimidation as he outplayed the 23-year-old in key moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something that has been very tough for me,\u201d Bergs said, when asked about getting a win against one of the biggest names on the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI often have too much respect for these guys, which is part of my culture and I\u2019m proud of that. But it gets a little bit in the way when you have to \u2060play them\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more experience you have practising against them and playing matches, the more it \u2060becomes the new standard a little bit. To have this moment, for me it is a little bit of a relief. I feel like now I really can win against these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alcaraz conceded he was below his best.<\/p>\n
\u201cI \u2060didn\u2019t play the way that I wanted to play. A lot of mistakes. I didn\u2019t \u2060find a good position on the return,\u201d Alcaraz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, credit to him. I would say he served really well.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when I got into the rhythm, when I got into the point, I made a lot of mistakes. I wasn\u2019t feeling comfortable with my shots. So, I\u2019m really disappointed with today\u2019s match \u2060because I didn\u2019t find the solution. I just made a lot of unforced errors.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Dream come true\u2019<\/p>\n
The upset also guaranteed French Open and US Open champion Zverev, 29, the ATP\u2019s year-end world \u2060number one ranking, making him the first German and the oldest first-time player to achieve the feat.<\/p>\n
Zverev\u2019s route to the top spot opened after Italian Jannik Sinner had not played \u2060since beating him in the Wimbledon final on July 12 due to a \u2060knee injury.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old Sinner missed the North American hard-court tournaments, the US Open and the ongoing Asian contests. The five-time major winner will also sit out the European indoor season and the ATP Finals in Turin, where he has lifted the trophy in each of the last two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a \u200cfantastic season for me, winning in Paris and New York and knowing that I will finish the year on top of the rankings is just a dream come true,\u201d said Zverev, who will face Kazakhstan\u2019s 19th seed Alexander Bublik in the \u200cround \u200cof 16 in Shanghai.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much work and effort have been put into achieving this goal, especially after coming back from the ankle injury [at the 2022 French Open semifinals].<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to finishing the season in style.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresh from defending his Japan Open title after returning from injury, Alcaraz never found his rhythm in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":930403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[6109,49,48,95,457,82,593],"class_list":["post-930402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-asia-pacific","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-china","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930402","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=930402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/930403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}