Griekspoor on breaking ‘mental barrier’ in Zverev rivalry

When Tallon Griekspoor stepped on court to face Alexander Zverev in early March in Indian Wells, he couldn’t help but feel the weight of his five-match losing streak against the German.

“I have to say with Zverev I felt the momentum in our head-to-head pretty strongly,” said Griekspoor, reflecting on his battles with Zverev to ATPTour.com. “I beat him once in Rotterdam, and then I lost the next five times. In all of them, I was pretty close. In all of them, I had chances, at least in one of the sets. I felt like it was more of a mental barrier there.”

It took three hours and eight minutes of topsy-turvy action on the Indian Wells Tennis Garden's Stadium 1 for Griekspoor to snap his losing run against Zverev. He prevailed with a hard-earned 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(4) second-round triumph, one that reduced his Lexus ATP Head2Head deficit with the German to 2-6.

_{^{Griekspoor celebrates after defeating Zverev in March at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. Photo Credit: Andrew Eichenholz/ATP Tour}}

“I don't think it was the best match we played,” said Griekspoor. “I felt like it was a mental match, a physical match. We played over three hours, but I was definitely super proud of myself, how I did it mentally there. He served for the match in the second set, I served for it in the third. I wasted five match points.

“So I guess it wasn't easy to do, but mentally that win meant a lot. At the same time, just getting that one out of the way, my first Top 5 win, was something I was looking for, for quite a while. That definitely gave a lot of confidence, and I played some good tennis after [to reach the quarter-finals] as well.”

Griekspoor was speaking this week in Munich, where on Friday he has the chance to notch another victory against Zverev in the quarter-finals of the BMW Open by Bitpanda. Even after his success against the German in Indian Wells, Griekspoor acknowledged that it is a tough ask for a player to simply put past experiences against an opponent out of their mind.

“It's never easy,” said the two-time ATP Tour champion. “I mean, it's nice when the head-to-head is going your way, but it's maybe even tougher when it doesn't go your way. It's a different match every time, but at the same time, of course you know the past, you know the history, you know how it has been before. So especially with Zverev, it was a thing in Indian Wells, and it was such a mental thing.”

All this perhaps makes it surprising that Griekspoor lists two rivalries in which he has losing Lexus ATP Head2Head records as his favourites on Tour.

“I actually like playing with Zverev, because I have been close every time and he's obviously one of the best players in the world,” he explained. “At the same time, a rivalry that pops up in my mind is actually [Alexander] Bublik, who I lost to four times, and all of them went to two tie-breaks or three sets. It has been so close all the time, but I have just never beaten him yet. So that's one I'm not too happy about, but hopefully I can turn that one around.”

Griekspoor’s maiden Top 5 win was not the only breakthrough the Dutchman has made in recent weeks. Earlier this month he reached the championship match at the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech. It was his maiden tour-level final on clay, a surprising fact considering his pedigree on the surface.

“To be honest, if you look at all the articles from five years ago, I always said it was my favourite surface, which it actually was,” said Griekspoor, who has won nine ATP Challenger Tour titles on the surface, including six in 2021 alone. “Especially when I was playing Challengers, I was playing so many clay matches during the year. I never went to the States. I just stayed on clay in Europe.”

Following his victories against Learner Tien and Yannick Hanfmann this week in Munich, Griekspoor is 5-2 for the season on clay, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index. With nearly two months left of the European clay-court season, the No. 37 in the PIF ATP Rankings believes he is ready to put together a positive set of results.

“I am a guy who I think needs a lot of matches on clay before I find my rhythm. In the last two years, three years on Tour, one I was injured, and I just never found my way. Last year, I was struggling a lot on the clay. That's also why I went to Marrakech this year, trying to put in a lot of hours on the court.

“That was actually the perfect first week on clay. Played finals, played well, didn't play amazing, but still played finals, which was a very good achievement there, and I'm just looking forward to building on that. I know that if I play a lot of matches on clay, I do actually enjoy it.”