Mischa Zverev’s old-school master class ousts world No. 1 Andy Murray

Sometimes it’s called “getting in the zone.” Sometimes it’s called “treeing.” Sometimes it’s called being “en fuego.” On Sunday in Melbourne, Mischa Zverev found a new way to describe the sensation that tennis players feel when they find themselves unable to miss a ball.

“I was in a little coma out there,” Zverev said.

If that’s true, no one in a coma, “little” or not, has ever moved as quickly, or hit so many shots as brilliantly, or exploded our idea of what’s possible on a tennis court these days as thoroughly as Zverev did in his 7-5, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 upset of top-seeded Andy Murray at the Australian Open. The German played a version of the sport that was simultaneously old-school and never-before-seen.

Zverev is 29, which means he’s old enough to remember a time when the serve-and-volley game was used successfully. On Sunday, he set about proving that the style is still viable, even against one of the tour’s very best baseliners and returners.

Just as important, Zverev showed how much fun serve-and-volley can be to play and to watch. He came up with so many sublime strokes, and so many that we rarely see today, that he looked at times as if he were playing trick-shot, exhibition tennis. In reality, Zverev was playing a utilitarian, smotheringly effective game. It wasn’t that Murray was so bad; he just didn’t have any sustainable answers for what his opponent was doing.

Here are a few highlights from Zverev’s all-court clinic:

—He hit his forehand with an abbreviated backswing; the racquet never traveled behind his body. The shot was all in his wrist, and Zverev used it to change the direction of the ball at will. Was Zverev a squash player at some point? He looked at times as if he were playing that elegantly wristy game on a tennis court.

—Zverev attacked Murray’s second serves and came to the net whenever possible. He used a standard one-handed slice backhand to do this, but more eye-catching was his two-handed return. He lunged into the shot, drove the ball into the corners, and stormed the net. It has been a long time since anyone has been as proactive with their returns, and it was was a pleasant jolt to watch Zverev start points that way.

—Once he was at the net, Zverev stretched himself to the limit for volleys, picked them off his shoe-tops, dropped them over the net for winners, and handled virtually all of them without ever looking rushed. Aussie Open commentator and former player Jacco Eltingh was asked to name the last player he had seen who had volleyed as well as Zverev. He had to reach all the way back to Pat Rafter’s days at the top of the sport in the 1990s, and I think he was right.

—Zverev was just as expert and versatile with his serves and ground strokes. He mixed up the speeds of his deliveries, and rarely tried for aces. From the baseline, he played a measured game; instead of trying to belt winners, or rallying defensively, he moved Murray side to side, always looking for an opportunity to move in. There was a compelling cause-and-effect to every shot Zverev played, which is something that has largely been lost in the shift from serve and volley to baseline tennis.

“Definitely the best match of my life,” said Zverev, a former prodigy whose ranking fell as low as No. 1067 after years of injuries, and a 2014 wrist surgery. “It was just incredible.”

“I believed that playing serve and volley against [Murray] and slicing a lot, trying to destroy his rhythm, was going to work, which it did in the end.”

Zverev had essentially quit tennis and resigned himself to coaching when his younger brother, Alexander, began his rise up the rankings. The two play different games and have different body types, but the inspiration has obviously flowed from younger brother to older.

“He’s very, very positive,” Mischa said of Alexander—also known as Sascha—yesterday. “I say it’s in a naive way sometimes, which is good. You need that kind of personality next to you. When things are not going your way, you have somebody who is just always positive, always believing.”

As for Murray, this loss didn’t strike me as a sign that the pressure of being No. 1 is getting to him. The pressure he felt on Sunday came from Zverev, and it was unrelenting. Murray did make adjustments. He won the second set by jumping on Zverev’s serve and taking it as early as possible. But even winning just one set required him to come up with one brilliant return and pass after another, and that wasn’t going to happen for three full sets, even for the world No. 1.

“I don’t think it’s so much someone necessarily coming in,” Murray said when he was asked how Zverev’s attack had affected him. “It’s the shots he was coming up with when he did come forward. I mean, he came up with some great pickups, reflex volleys, especially at the end of the match when it was tight.”

Over the last four years, the Australian Open has gradually sped up its medium-paced Plexicushion courts. This is the first year when that shift has shown up in the results. The top two seeds and perennial finalists, Murray and Novak Djokovic, have both been eliminated by lower-ranked but more aggressive opponents, and CoCo Vandeweghe did the same to No. 1 seed Angelique Kerber on the women’s side. We’ll see what long-term effect that has on the tournament, if any. There are still plenty of baseliners in the draw.

We’ll also see if Zverev can pull off something like this performance in his next match, against Roger Federer. The chances are slim; he lost his last match to Federer, in 2013, 6-0, 6-0.

Either way, Zverev has already done something special in Melbourne. By going into his “little coma” against Murray, he played a match that was a sight for old-school eyes, and reminded us again, at a time when we needed reminding, that there’s more than one way to win a tennis match.