If it wasn’t the most important rally of the final, it had to be right up there.
Zverev’s won-loss in rallies of nine shots or more in his five previous matches at AO 2025? He won 72 and lost 56.
Luck helps
With their previous three duels going to a deciding third or fifth set and Zverev possibly playing the best tennis of his career, few seemingly predicted a straight-sets result in the Italian’s favour.
The sliding doors moment came in the second set. Had Zverev won it, who knows how the final would have veered.
Facing a 0-30 hole at 4-5 – after two unforced errors and two second serves – Sinner slammed two first serves to begin his escape from the game.
The aforementioned rally proved crucial in Sinner getting to the tiebreak, before Lady Luck sided with him.
Sinner, coming off a second-serve return miss to make it 4-4, appeared edgy on his next shot, too.
But his forehand clipped the top of the tape and dropped over for a net-cord winner to Zverev’s lament.
Call it deja vu for Zverev. He endured bad luck in a key tiebreak at AO 2024, seeing Daniil Medvedev’s mishit return become a drop shot winner at 5-5 in the fourth-set tiebreak.
Medvedev overturned a two-set deficit to prevail.
Tension, tension
Zverev appeared to be unhappy with his string tension, most notably when he sat down at 3-4 in the opening set.
He proceeded to make a pair of unforced errors to start the next game, eventually getting broken to trail 5-3 when a Sinner passing shot was too hot to handle.
This article was originally published by a ausopen.com . Read the Original article here. .