Alexander Zverev shrugs off Australian Open boos to power past John Millman

Alexander Zverev needed no reminding of the last time he played John Millman at a grand slam. “Five and a half hours, five sets – he’s a very difficult player to beat,” he said before his second-round match against the Australian.

That match was the third round at Roland Garros in 2020, when the then 89th-ranked Millman rallied from two sets down and pushed him to five stanzas in a thriller that frustrated Zverev to the point of smashing his racket on to the ground.

A lot has happened since then. That same year Zverev made his first first slam final at the US Open. In 2021 he climbed back up to world No 3, won Olympic gold and then the ATP Finals, beating the only two players ranked higher in Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev. With Djokovic gone from his side of the draw and Medvedev safely on the other, the 2022 Australian Open could yet be the German’s tournament.

Getting there will very much depend on the level of consistency for which the 24-year-old is known but somewhat lacked in his opening match at Melbourne Park. On Wednesday night it faltered again only to return just in time to avoid another marathon with the popular local up the other end and finish the match 6-4, 6-4, 6-0.

“My tactic today was to hit the ball as slow as possible,” Zverev said in a post-match interview with the Australian wheelchair tennis champion, Dylan Alcott. “That was my mindset going into the match, but hopefully I can hit it even harder next match and harder the next match after that.”

Alcott, who himself won the Paralympic men’s singles gold in Tokyo 2020 on his way to a golden slam, asked Zverev where he keeps his medal and received an unexpected response.

“That’s actually a good question because my brother took it for a media