Alexander Shevchenko, who starred with Kazakhstan in the United Cup, has raised concerns about the extreme conditions players are playing in on occasion. Heat was a feature on Day 4 of the mixed team competition, with temperatures in Perth exceeding 35 degrees during the Kazakhstan-German clash.
The 24-year-old took the deciding point by coming from behind (5) to beat Daniel Masur 6-7, 6-2, 6-2, but he let off steam in a press conference, sending a clear message to tournament organisers.
“I feel good now, but right after the match I felt like I was dying. These are brutal conditions: 37-40 degrees. I don’t understand why they don’t close the roof in these conditions, because it’s quite dangerous to play like this. If there are long matches in this heat, it’s really tough,” Shevchenko said before dwelling on his performance: “I wasn’t aggressive enough in the first set, but then I found my breath and played as I should have done in the first. I’m proud of my reaction.”
The naturalized Kazakh tennis player was supposed to face Alexander Zverev. The German, however, withdrew a few hours before the match due to a problem with his right biceps.
“In a way I was happy; in a way less so. It’s not always nice to play against the world number two, but at the same time you want to challenge these players. I could have done better against Zverev, the pressure with Masur was all on me. If I had a little more freedom, like I had against Stefanos Tsitsipas, I would have played better,” he analyzed.
Shevchenko defeated and sent Stefanos Tsitsipas into crisis, at the United Cup. Unlike his debut match in Perth, the Greek made too many errors without ever finding continuity from the baseline. Shevchenko took advantage of this with cunning and won with the score of 6-4, 7-6.
In the central part of the second set, Tsitsipas did not hide his disappointment and during the changeover he let loose with a rather harsh comment towards himself. The Greek railed against his own backhand, a shot that often does not allow him to set up rallies as he would like and that in some cases represents an obvious limit.
“My backhand is not going anywhere. I have to put a truck behind it for it to work. It is impossible to do anything,” Tsitsipas told his captain.
Tennis World USA