Alexander Zverev missed out on another significant chance to gain ground on world No 1 Jannik Sinner as he suffered an early exit at the 2025 Mexican Open.<\/p>\n
The world No 2 was upset 6-3, 6-4 by world No 83 Learner Tien in the\u00a0second round of the ATP 500 tournament in Acapulco.<\/p>\n
Zverev<\/a>, who was the top seed at the Mexican Open, was decisively broken by his 19-year-old American opponent at 3-4 in the opening set.<\/p>\n The 27-year-old German then built a 4-1 lead in the second set before losing five straight games to collapse to a chastening defeat.<\/p>\n Zverev is one of several top players in Acapulco who was reportedly affected by stomach issues or food poisoning, with the draw taking a big hit on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Casper Ruud and Tommy Paul both withdrew before their second round matches, while Holger Rune retired after three games.\u00a0Alex Michelsen, who lost to Denis Shapovalov, was also apparently impacted.<\/p>\n Despite the circumstances surrounding Zverev\u2019s latest defeat, it concluded a disappointing Latin American swing for the German as he missed three big opportunities to win titles and collect a sizeable amount of points.<\/p>\n ATP Rankings world No 1 race: When could Jannik Sinner lose top spot to Alexander Zverev or Carlos Alcaraz?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n ATP Miami Open 2025 Entry List: Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev star; Will Nick Kyrgios play?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n With Sinner banned from playing on the ATP Tour<\/a> until May 4 due to failed doping tests, both Zverev and world No 3 Carlos Alcaraz have a chance to catch the world No 1.<\/p>\n In the previous two weeks, Zverev lost in the quarter-finals at both the Argentina Open and the Rio Open \u2014 clay-court events at which he was a strong favourite based on ranking.<\/p>\n The three-time major finalist\u2019s second round exit in Mexico leaves him with the 8,135 points with which he began the week.<\/p>\n Zverev, who ground out a three-set win over Matteo Arnaldi in the first round, earned 50 points for his second round result. He could have earned a further 450 points had he won the title.<\/p>\n This means Zverev remains 3,195 points adrift of Sinner \u2014 a sizeable gap to make up despite the Italian\u2019s absence from the tour.<\/p>\n Sinner will drop 1,600 while he is sidelined, which will leave him on 9,730 points when he makes his expected comeback at the Italian Open in May.<\/p>\n Zverev will, therefore, need to surpass this points total\u00a0by the time of Sinner\u2019s return to become world No 1 for the first time.<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a0Billionaire ex-tennis star says sport is \u2018rigged to the core\u2019 as he addresses Jannik Sinner doping ban<\/a> The post Alexander Zverev\u2019s Acapulco exit concludes a disastrous run for his world No 1 hopes<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alexander Zverev missed out on another significant chance to gain ground on world No 1 Jannik Sinner as he suffered an early exit at the 2025 Mexican Open. The world No 2 was upset 6-3, 6-4 by world No 83 Learner Tien in the\u00a0second round of the ATP 500 tournament in Acapulco. Zverev, who was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}ATP Tour News<\/h2>\n
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