{"id":58457,"date":"2025-08-04T20:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/58457\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T20:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:12:10","slug":"he-turns-into-prime-novak-djokovic-every-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/58457\/","title":{"rendered":"‘He turns into prime Novak Djokovic every time’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexander Zverev has revealed the \u201cmost annoying\u201d player for him to face and also named an opponent who has made him feel \u201clike a complete fool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world No 3 is currently in action at the 2025 Canadian Open, where he is the top seed in the absence of Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.<\/p>\n

Zverev<\/a>\u00a0is seeking his second title of 2025 after his victory at the ATP 500 in Munich in April.<\/p>\n

The German, a seven-time Masters 1000 champion, won the Canadian Open in Montreal in 2017.<\/p>\n

The three-time Grand Slam runner-up\u00a0appeared on the Nothing Major podcast, which is hosted by former American tennis stars John Isner, Sam Querrey and Steve Johnson.<\/p>\n

Zverev was asked by Johnson to name the \u201cmost annoying\u201d opponent for him to face.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the most obvious answer is Daniil Medvedev. I mean, I lost to him like 78 times, to be honest (laughs),\u201d Zverev said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven now, even now I\u2019m ranked three in the world and he is ranked \u2014 I don\u2019t know, 14 \u2014 and I still lose to him in Halle.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe turns into prime Novak Djokovic every time he plays against me and I\u2019m like\u2026 \u2018I don\u2019t even play that bad. Why am I losing?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Zverev holds a 7-13 record against Medvedev and he has lost 12 of his last 14 encounters with the Russian.<\/p>\n

In Toronto, Zverev was leading 6-4, 1-0 in his fourth round match with\u00a0Francisco Cerundolo when the Argentine was forced to retire.<\/p>\n

Alexander Zverev News<\/p>\n

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The 5 active players to win 500 ATP Tour matches: Alexander Zverev joins exclusive club<\/a><\/p>\n

The 28-year-old also named Cerundolo as a player he struggles against\u00a0prior to their match in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you\u2026 Cerundolo. I am 0-3 against him and I won one set against him in three matches. All on clay, twice in Madrid, though,\u201d the German added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have four losses in Madrid in my entire career and two of them came against him. And both straight sets. I just felt like a complete fool, I had no idea what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the same episode, Querrey asked Zverev to pick the worst match he has played in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think any match this year, probably (laughs),\u201d Zverev said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, there\u2019s a few matches that come to mind. I had a period of time where I just couldn\u2019t put a second serve in the court. For like a year and a half, I was serving like 20-something double faults a match.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut one of the worst matches last year\u2026 oh my god, he\u2019s gonna hate me for that, but I played my fellow countryman in Acapulco.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played against Daniel Altmaier. It was the worst tennis match I think I\u2019ve ever played in my entire life.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, it was one of those matches like, your serve\u2019s not working, your forehand\u2019s terrible \u2014 well, my forehand is always terrible \u2014 but, my forehand was terrible.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy backhand, I played like Steve Johnson with two hands. I couldn\u2019t volley, I just couldn\u2019t do anything. It was such a horrific match.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ NEXT:\u00a0Alexander Zverev answers Rafael Nadal mentor question as he reveals his biggest focus<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexander Zverev has revealed the \u201cmost annoying\u201d player for him to face and also named an opponent who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-58457","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\/58457","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=58457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}