NEW YORK — There’s a fine line between athletes using mental health as a valid explanation and a lame excuse. Alexander Zverev veered to the extreme lame side Tuesday.
Not long after he pummeled American Sam Querrey in the opening round at Ashe Stadium, Zverev, the 2021 Olympic gold medalist, asked the media to stop bringing up the domestic abuse allegations levied by his ex-girlfriend.
Why?
“You guys need to be fair to me as well, because we are talking about mental health and all that to players, and this is not healthy for me either,” the 24-year-old German said.
Zverev, who is talented enough to fit in the “next-in-line” category after the old guard flames out, allegedly tried to strangle his ex-girlfriend, Olga Sharypova, and hit her head against the wall in a New York hotel before the 2019 U.S. Open. Sharypova, a former tennis pro from Russia, recently detailed other incidents in an interview with Slate.com.
Her stories are ugly.
Zverev declared himself innocent and vindicated because a German court granted him a preliminary injunction against the author of the Slate.com article. Of course, this isn’t how the law works. The court only ruled his defamation case against Slate is valid enough to be heard. Zverev’s statement that this “confirmed” the allegations were untrue was very Trump-ian in its absolute ignorance.
Which led to Tuesday’s exchange when a reporter asked for further clarification.
“I’m very happy with how things went in the past few days, few weeks,” Zverev concluded after his “mental health” plea. “I think a lot of people try to twist what I said and try to twist my words on that statement, but I think it was very, very clear. That’s it.”
Zverev has every right to defend himself and plead his case. He can ignore the questions or simply issue a blanket “no-comment.” But asking for sympathy while improperly declaring himself absolved of domestic abuse is just asinine. It also undermines all the other appeals for mental-health breaks, which have risen in the athlete community and are being greeted with public skepticism.
Kyrie Irving, Naomi Osaka, Kevin Love and Simone Biles all said they needed a break, whether from competing or answering media questions. There are reasons to applaud their decisions or criticize their ability to deal with pressure or adversity, which is a significant factor in sports.
But “mental health” can’t be a catch-all play-the-victim card. And it doesn’t apply to domestic abuse allegations or Zverev.
