He beat him before playing: Zverev’s lie to the judge about the serve at Roland Garros :: Olé

Alexander Zverev (4th) left one of the most unprecedented situations in Roland Garros and of the year of tennis, in the preview of the match against Alex De Minaur (11th) for the quarterfinals of the Parisian Grand Slam. It happened that in the middle of the toss to see who would win the first service game, a boy who was on the umpire’s side threw the coin that would decide which of the two would start the game.

The options for both were ball or racket and Zverev chose, without hesitation: “Ball, please”. When the boy in a wheelchair threw the coin, it went a few meters away from the German, and the chair umpire asked him to tell him what had come up. That’s when the situation got a little weird.

Zverev grabbed the coin and showed it to the judge saying “racket came out”. Automatically, the judge sided with the Australian and at that moment the world No. 4 spoke again and said “no, I chose racket.” In fact, the referee asked him if that was the case and the German answered the same thing again.

Instantly, murmurs began to be heard from the people who were present at Philippe Chatrier. Zverev realized that the public knew that he lied and He offered De Minaur the serve. “If you want to serve, you can. I’m going to receive,” he commented to close the talk.

It is not known if the Australian did not realize it and let himself be defeated in the draw or if one of the interpreters (including the chair umpire) pretended that nothing happened and continued on.

Zverev not only beat De Minaur’s serve handsomely, but when the ball began to go over the net he beat him in straight sets by 6-4, 7-6 (5) and 6-4 and got into the semi-finals of the second Grand Slam of the year.

After the German’s 3-0, Paris has its four best tennis players in the table defined with the semifinals confirmed: Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinnerbrand new No. 1 in the world, will play the first semi on Friday at 9.30while Zverev and Casper Ruud (advanced due to Djokovic’s retirement) will fight, at 2:30 p.m., for second place in the final. Both matches can be seen on ESPN2 and Star+.