Top Moments of 2019, No. 10: Fedal helps turn around Zverev's season

In a decade to remember, 2019 didn't disappoint as the closing act. Click here to review the Top 10 moments from the final season of the 2010s.

If Alexander Zverev didn't seem particularly positive, it was tough to blame him.

The 22-year-old German had been having a rough season, including an acrimonious split with his agent, and coach Ivan Lendl deciding to leave during the busiest stretch of the schedule. He had won the 2018 ATP Finals, but just one small event this season.

At Wimbledon, he was emotional in a press conference following a first-round exit—strikingly similar to the way fellow younger players Stefanos Tsitsipas and Naomi Osaka had looked the same day, again prompting questions about mental toughness.

And now Zverev was playing the deciding match in Laver Cup, locked at a set all with his team of fellow European players hanging on him. Before the deciding tiebreaker, he left the court and went back to the locker room. That's when his teammates—a couple of guys by the name of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal—decided to step in with some advice.

"I want a fist pump or 'let's go' for every point you win," said Federer, tossing in a couple of expletives for good measure.

There was also Nadal adding, "No one negative face.''

Getty Images

"They gave me a lot of nice words, a lot of positivity," said Zverev, who got the win. "This is how I could turn my season around, and this is how I can get my confidence back."

That he did, finishing up the season by defeating Federer at Shanghai and Nadal at the ATP Finals, where he got to the semifinals. Tsitsipas, who also said he was helped by Federer and Nadal's words to him at Laver Cup, also defeated Federer while winning the ATP Finals.

The two champions might have been a little too good as coaches.