Alexander Zverev's Battle at the US Open: A First-Round Marathon
Alexander Zverev walked off court exhausted and elated, the kind of drained that only a nearly five-hour fistfight with the sport can produce. The French Open champion had just survived a brutal first-round marathon at the US Open, and his first instinct was simple.
“I’m just happy I won,” he told the ATP Tour. No embellishment. No grand speech. Just relief.
“Incredible battle. A lot of ups and downs. Nearly five hours for a first round. I think this is the longest first-round match I’ve ever played in my life.”
For a player who has lived at tennis’s sharp end for years, that is saying something.
Unfinished business in New York
Zverev’s relationship with Flushing Meadows is complicated. In 2020, he stood on the brink of his first Grand Slam title here, two sets up on Dominic Thiem in the final, one hand seemingly on the trophy. It slipped away. The memory has never really left him.
“I still feel like I should have won in 2020, that doesn’t change,” he admitted last week in a press conference, the wound clearly still there beneath the surface polish.
That sense of unfinished business fuels him now. He arrives in New York as the reigning French Open champion and a recent Wimbledon finalist, a player who has forced his way back into the sport’s inner circle. Yet he refuses to elevate himself above the rest of the field.
“I feel like I’m one of the 128 players that are favourites in the draw,” he said. A line that sounds modest, but from Zverev it lands more as defiance than humility. He knows what he’s capable of here. The tour knows it too.
A constant in the player’s box
Through the peaks and crashes of his career, one presence has become a fixture in his box: Sophia Thomalla. Cameras often find her in the stands during his biggest matches, a familiar face in the chaos of Grand Slam tennis.
They have been together for more than five years, a long-term relationship by the sport’s restless standards. While Zverev fights on court, Thomalla has carved out a very different path in the public eye.
Who is Sophia Thomalla?
Sophia Thomalla was born in East Berlin on October 6, 1989, into a family that already knew the demands of the spotlight. Her parents, Simone Thomalla and André Vetters, are both actors, and their separation in 1995 meant Sophia’s childhood unfolded between cities and sets rather than in one settled place.
She spent her early years in Berlin before moving with her mother to Cologne and Kleinmachnow, experiences that helped shape a public persona that is both polished and unapologetically bold.
Thomalla is known not just for her work, but for her striking body art. She started getting tattoos young, turning her skin into a kind of personal archive. One of the most talked-about pieces is a statement tattoo bearing the name and birth date of actor Sven Martinek, who dated her mother in the late 1990s, a detail once highlighted by German tabloid Klatsch-Tratsch. It underlines what has long been clear about Thomalla: she does not shy away from making her choices visible.
Support in the spotlight
While Zverev chases a first US Open crown, Thomalla’s presence adds a layer of familiarity to an otherwise unforgiving environment. Grand Slams can feel brutally isolating. The schedule is relentless, the scrutiny constant, the margins tiny. Having a steady face in the box matters.
Zverev’s story in New York is still missing its final chapter. He has the scars of 2020, the momentum of a Roland Garros title, and the stamina to survive a five-hour opening-round war. The question now is whether this time, on these courts, he can finally turn all of that into the trophy he has long believed should already be his.
