Alexander Zverev has been accused of failing to abide by social distancing rules after a photo of him surfaced on social media platform Instagram on Thursday.
The world No.7 is currently residing in Florida with his brother Mischa due to the COVID-9 pandemic. There have been an estimated 1.5 million cases of the deadly virus worldwide and many countries are in lockdown in order to prevent its spread. Meanwhile, all professional tennis tournaments have been suspended until at least July.
With many players staying in their homes due to the current situation, Zverev is still able to go and train at the nearby Saddlebrook Tennis Academy under certain rules. A renowned training facility that has also been used by the likes of Martina Hingis, Pete Sampras and the Bryan brothers. However, he has attracted criticism after the academy posted a photo on their Instagram account of him standing next to a young player. Failing to follow the social distancing guidelines.
“Even though the tennis season has been postponed, the grinding has not! Alex Zverev and students making the most of their time on the court while they can,” the caption reads.
The photo has since been removed by the academy. However, some on social media have already criticised the three-time Masters 1000 champion for his behaviour.
Personally, if I were a 22-year-old tennis star with $20m+ in the bank, I'd be holed up at my palace with my swimming pool and oodles of outside personal space instead of whatever-the-irresponsible-hell Alexander Zverev is doing right now.
— Jonathan Newman (@Tennis_Jon) April 9, 2020
In another post Tumaini Carayol from The Guardian commented that the tennis star ‘seems to be living on a different planet to the rest of us.’
The 22-year-old have won 11 ATP titles so far in his career, including the 2018 ATP Finals. Earlier this year he achieved his best ever run at a grand slam tournament where he reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open before losing to Dominic Thiem. He has been ranked as high as third in the world.
According to the Florida State Department there has been 16,828 cases of COVID-19 since March 1st. Including 317 deaths relating to the virus. Click Orlando reports that 156,800 people have been tested across Florida as of Thursday morning. 10.7% of those tests has come back positive.
Zverev is yet to publicly comment on the photo.
Saddlebrook Tennis Acad. and A. #Zverev got kind of a shitstorm after the academy in Florida posted this non socialdistancing photo after practice yesterday
In the meantime it has been deleted
Florida remains under a stay-at-home order until April30, has nearly 17.000 cases pic.twitter.com/v7ACFCoBMz
— Jannik Schneider (@schnejan) April 10, 2020