At the beginning of October, Sophia Thomalla and Alexander Zverev officially announced their relationship. Now they show themselves together in public for the first time at the ATP tournament in Vienna, the Erste Bank Open – albeit with a lot of distance between them.
Thomalla sat in the attendant’s box for Zverev’s first-round match, next to his brother Mischa and physiotherapist Hugo Gravil. She was visibly tense as she fevered along. It must have helped him, because Zverev won confidently.
On Thursday, he will play his second round match against the Australian Alex de Minaur. According to the bookmakers’ tennis betting odds, Zverev is the heavy favourite for this match.
Zverev & Thomalla: With fresh love to win the tournament?
Zverev is expected to win against de Minaur. The 24-year-old from Hamburg is currently ranked No. 4 in the ATP World Ranking, de Minaur is ranked 32. Zverev and de Minaur have met five times so far – four times Zverev walked off the court as the winner.
Should Zverev reach the quarter-finals as planned, he would be just three wins away from success in the Wiener Stadthalle.
Can Zverev win in Vienna?
Zverev’s chances of winning the tournament in Vienna at the Erste Bank Open 2021 are good. Both tennis experts and bookmaker predictions and betting odds see Zverev as a big favourite to win the tournament.
In Vienna, Germany’s best tennis player is seeded second. The only player ahead of him in the seedings is Stefanos Tsitsipas, who is also one position ahead of Zverev in the world rankings. This means that Zverev could only meet the Greek in the final.
With the support of his new girlfriend Sophia Thomalla, Zverev could win in Vienna for the first time.
It would be the fifth title for “Sascha” this 2021 season. Zverev had previously won in Acapulco, at the Masters1000 in Madrid and the Masters1000 in Cincinnati in the autumn. In between, he crowned himself Olympic champion at the Tokyo Olympics.
However, it would be the first title for the new love couple Zverev & Thomalla.
At the Masters event in Indian Wells, Thomalla was at a tournament with Zverev for the first time and she had not (yet) brought her sweetheart any luck. Zverev surprisingly lost to Taylor Fritz in the quarter-finals.
Was the distraction for the newly in love couple perhaps too great back then?
Maybe things will go better for Zverev and Thomalla in Vienna…
