Externally, Alexander Zverev had himself under control after the unexpectedly early defeat at the Tennis Masters in Indian Wells.

Two weeks after the freak in Acapulco, the Olympic champion still needed his rest before he spoke late Sunday evening (local time) about the 2: 6, 6: 4, 6: 7 (2: 7) against Tommy Paul from the USA wanted to.

"I have to do a bit of introspection and see how I can turn the season around a bit.

Because I think everything is going in the wrong direction at the moment," said the 24-year-old from Hamburg.

“Last year everything went my way for the last six months, I won all these matches except here against (Taylor) Fritz.

And this year everything is going against me.”

The number three in the world tennis rankings, riding an impressive wave of success last year with six tournament victories - including gold at the Olympic Games and first place in the ATP finals - seemed at a loss.

When he was tired and sitting on a stack of tables in the catacombs of the second largest tennis stadium in the world and kept leaning his head against the wall looking for answers, he didn't have any for himself either.

"Australia was disastrous..."

“At the end of the day, I was relatively weak mentally today.

I was mentally strong in terms of turning the match around.

But then when I have to finish it, it was catastrophic," he said.

"I need a good result myself, I think that would be helpful."

But the course of the game will remain in his head for a while.

"He played madness, of course, there's no question.

But of course I had the match in my hand at some point in the third set and then played an incredibly bad game at 4: 2," Zverev analyzed and recognized a pattern for this year: "Australia was catastrophic, Montpellier the final was not good , here I would say I should win the match at the end of the day” – but he didn't.

Angelique Kerber had freed herself from an almost hopeless situation on Friday evening and won her second round match against the Chinese Qinwen Zheng.

Despite concerns about the war in Ukraine and the special task against the Russian Darja Kassatkina on Sunday, she had no difficulties on her way to the round of 16 and is the last German still active in Indian Wells.

Zverev, on the other hand, couldn't help himself.

At least he wasn't looking for excuses.

When he won the Davis Cup in Brazil last week, he was still angry about the bullying fans, the week before there was a freak in Acapulco.

After a defeat in doubles, he banged his racket on the referee's chair and was disqualified for it.

However, the ATP suspended his eight-week suspension and the $25,000 fine for a year, so that Zverev was allowed to compete at the Masters in Indian Wells.

After arriving in California, he thought he was still on the right track, but before his next task in Miami he now knows that this is not true.