Fearnley’s progress has been so rapid over the past 15 months, it can be easy to forget how inexperienced he remains at the highest level.<\/p>\n
Little over a year ago, the former US college student was ranked outside of the world’s leading 500 players.<\/p>\n
Since then he has soared up the rankings – cracking the top 50 in June – after a stunning introduction to the ATP Tour.<\/p>\n
Fearnley has a habit of drawing high-profile names early in the Grand Slams and has already played on some of the iconic courts in the game.<\/p>\n
But in recent months his form has been compromised by a nervous tension which is particularly damaging to his serve.<\/p>\n
Fearnley hit 12 double faults against Zverev, including one in each of his service games as he lost the first set.<\/p>\n
“It’s an issue and there are some quite obvious holes in my game, but I’m able to compete even when I’m not serving very well,” said Fearnley, who needed treatment on a shoulder injury in the first set.<\/p>\n
“It’s definitely something I want to fix – I’m just giving points away. <\/p>\n
“In practice I can make 100 second serves in a row, but it is something abut seeing the lights, seeing the court, and having Alex at other side of the net, which makes it so tricky. <\/p>\n
“With that noise that crowd it is sometimes difficult. I will figure it out eventually.”<\/p>\n
The issue also affected him in a first-round win over Roberto Bautista Agut, but he still had enough ability to get out of trouble against the wily Spanish veteran despite 18 double faults.<\/p>\n
This time, Fearnley did not get away with the same mistakes against one of the world’s very best.<\/p>\n
Beaten 2020 finalist Zverev won the opening set by a single break earned in the first game, with Fearnley later saying the German had kept him “standing there” for almost 15 minutes after they were called for the match.<\/p>\n
Fearnley also made slow starts to the next two sets but salvaged some pride after Zverev raced 5-1 ahead in the third.<\/p>\n
Cutting loose with his groundstrokes, Fearnley managed to prolong the match – wowing the crowd with explosive hitting and impressive athleticism – but it came too late.<\/p>\n
It was Fearnley\u2019s third defeat against Zverev this year and second at a major, after another straight-set loss at the Australian Open.<\/p>\n
“Overall I played a bit better [than Melbourne], I had some lapses in concentration but I felt pretty comfortable out there,” Fearnley said. <\/p>\n
Assessing his US Open debut overall, he added: “I\u2019m happy with the way I played and competed, mentally I thought I was good. I can take a lot from it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fearnley’s progress has been so rapid over the past 15 months, it can be easy to forget how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-118330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}