AUSTRALIAN OPEN

February 17, 2021

Alexander Zverev

Press Conference

N. DJOKOVIC/A. Zverev

6-7, 6-2, 6-4, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Bad luck. Do you feel you rushed a little bit when you were up a break in the third and fourth set?

ALEXANDER ZVEREV: Yeah, maybe too many mistakes, easy mistakes. But, you know, it's one of the most difficult things, holding your serve against Novak in our sport.

Yeah, very upsetting with the result.

Q. Just wanted to get your thoughts on the match. Obviously it was a super close contest, and Novak said it really could have gone either way.

ALEXANDER ZVEREV: Yeah. For me, the most upsetting parts in the third and fourth sets were actually not losing my serve but not getting the second breaks. Because I had chances in both those sets getting, you know, being up 4-0 or 5-1, that would have changed things, I think, a lot. Yeah. That's it.

It's not -- you know, it was a great match. I think we both played well. I think Novak probably said the same thing, that we played well. But, yeah, I'm definitely not happy with the result.

Q. Novak was just in the room and he said he has concerns about the tour proceeding with quarantines and the potential for injuries such as have occurred during this tournament, including to him and to you. What are your thoughts about that? What did you think of his physical condition and yours?

ALEXANDER ZVEREV: Well, no, I think today we're both fine. I think we played an extremely physical match, so I think we're both okay. I don't know what Novak said about himself, but I think we felt fine.

About the tour, yeah, I do agree that we can't have a traveling circuit right now. It's just as simple as that. Injuries will keep on happening. You know, there is restrictions to countries. Depends on what passport you have. You might not even be able to go to some of the countries. I know South American players will be struggling a lot.

We can't have a traveling circuit right now. I think what the ATP should do and should look into is, you know, maybe having a venue like here and play multiple weeks at one place. Multiple tournaments, multiple weeks.

Because at the end of the day in Europe right now we can't have spectators anyways, so what difference does it really make where we play the tournament? We can change the background, we can change the, you know, city name on the court or whatever, and then play it at one venue.

But I do agree with Novak, and we talked about it with Novak, as well, and with Vasek Pospisil, as well, that we simply cannot have a traveling circuit with how things are going.