Zverev Says His Ball Bouncing Went to an Extreme as the Umpire Tells Him to Watch the Clock

Alexander Zverev won his Shanghai quarter-final in 78 minutes on Thursday, and the slowest part of his week is still the time before the ball leaves his hand. After beating Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-4, Zverev said the chair umpire had told him to look at the shot clock when he was serving, Tennis365 reports. The routine that produced a reported 12,000 ball bounces at the US Open is now drawing official attention in Shanghai, and Zverev, to his credit, is not arguing with the premise. He says the bouncing is a habit that grew this year, that part of it is unnecessary, and that he is trying to cut it down.

What exactly did the umpire warn Zverev about?

The clock, not a count. Zverev said the umpire told him to look at the shot clock when he was serving, and his explanation was about sequence rather than defiance: he felt he was getting to the line quickly between points, then waiting while de Minaur went for his towel, and only then starting a bouncing routine that ate the remaining seconds, Tennis365 reports. By his own account he would reach the line with about 10 seconds left, bounce, run through the routine, and finish close to running out of time. His fix, as he described it, is simply to start earlier. It is a milder scene than the one Wu Yibing described in Shanghai last week, but it comes from the same tournament-long theme: Zverev’s time between points keeps becoming the story around his matches.

How big did the bouncing get at the US Open?

Big enough to become a broadcast graphic. The count reported during the tournament put Zverev at about 12,000 bounces across his first five matches in New York, at an average of roughly 10 seconds of bouncing per serve over 899 serves, the New York Post reports. Added up, that is about two and a half hours of pre-serve bouncing inside a tournament where he spent 19 hours and 38 minutes on court. He was called for time violations against both Khachanov and Shelton during that run. Zverev says the scale passed him by at the time because his phone was off and he was not looking at social media, Tennis365 reports, and that he only understood what had happened afterwards.

Why does a legal routine annoy opponents so much?

Because the returner has to hold a ready position through all of it. Karen Khachanov said after his semi-final defeat that the bouncing annoys a lot of players, since the returner sets, split-steps, and then faces another dozen bounces without knowing when the serve is coming, the New York Post reports. He also conceded the legal point: inside the time rules, there is nothing to protest. That is the tension. The first serve is governed by a 25-second shot clock, but there is no equivalent limit before a second serve, which is why Shelton, beaten by Zverev in the final, suggested the sport needs some sort of rule for second-serve time. It is not the first rule argument to attach itself to Zverev this autumn; in Shanghai alone he has already dealt with spectators accusing him of taking Shelton and Hewitt’s practice court, a claim he dismissed as made up.

What is Zverev actually changing?

Less bouncing, earlier. He says there is no target number in his head and that he serves when it feels right, but that he is bouncing less than he did in New York, where he accepts it went to an extreme, Tennis365 reports. He framed the reason as fairness rather than pace: if opponents feel distracted by something he does, he does not want to do it, because he wants to win with his tennis. The self-awareness is doing real work here. This is a player who saved four set points on a bad ankle to beat Alexander Bublik earlier this week and has already secured the year-end No. 1 ranking, so the routine is attached to the best season of his career, not a slump he can blame it on.

Did any of this affect the de Minaur match?

Barely, on the evidence of the scoreboard. Zverev made 80 percent of his first serves, saved all five break points he faced and closed out a 6-4, 6-4 win in 78 minutes, AP reports, his ninth win in 13 meetings with de Minaur. The short match also helped the ankle he has been managing since the third round, since he said afterwards that playing quickly and avoiding long rallies left his serve feeling better. His semi-final is against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who reached the last four when Arthur Gea retired 22 minutes into their quarter-final.

What happens next with the bouncing debate?

A semi-final under the same clock, and then a rule question that will not go away. If Zverev keeps the routine short in Shanghai, the story dies as a curiosity of one strange US Open. If the bouncing creeps back up in a long semi-final or final, the Shelton proposal stops being a beaten finalist’s frustration and becomes a tour conversation, with Roddick among those who called for a rule change in New York. Either way, the number is now public property: 12,000 bounces is the kind of statistic a player does not get to retire, however quickly he serves from here.