Jacob Fearnley claims Alexander Zverev was deliberately late for their US Open second-round match and adds that he expected it from the German.
Fearnley, who made his US Open main draw debut this year, defeated Alejandro Tabilo in the opening round. As a reward, he got to meet the tournament's 2020 US Open runner-up. Unfortunately for the 60th-ranked Briton, it didn't go well since the No. 3 seed completed a 6-4 6-4 6-4 win.
Later, after the match, Fearnley called out Zverev for what he believed was a classic act of gamesmanship. Earlier this year, the two met for the first time at the Australian Open. The Briton, who lost that match in straight sets as well, insisted the former world No. 2 did the exact same thing in Melbourne.
Fearnley: Zverev knew what he was doing…
"It was a long time. It was about ten minutes because they called me at 6.49, and then I think we ended up walking at like 7.01 or something like that. So, yeah, it is a little bit of time because you do like a 20-minute warm-up, and then you're standing there. You know, it's pretty quiet. So, yeah, it was an interesting one. I kind of expected it. My coach expected it. It was the same in Australia, and he’s always like: ‘Oh, I'm sorry about that,'" the world No. 60 said.
Fearnley then proceeded to directly accuse Zverev of delaying his time to the court.
"But he knows what he's doing. It was the same with Novak in Wimbledon. They take their time – I don't know if it's within the rules or not… Every time I played him, he kind of did the same," the 24-year-old added.
Meanwhile, Fearnley now has zero wins and three losses against Zverev. They also met in March in Miami, and the German won that one 6-2 6-4.
