No. 3 seed Alexander Zverev is out of Wimbledon after a five-set defeat to Arthur Rinderknech of France in the opening round.

The Frenchman, who is a talented grass-court player but has never gone beyond the third round of a major, triumphed 7-6(3), 6-7(8), 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-4 in a match played over two days. It was suspended at 1-1 on Monday night, after Zverev won the second set just a few minutes before the 11 p.m. curfew at Wimbledon.

For Zverev, the defeat extends a miserable run of form since he lost to Jannik Sinner in January’s Australian Open final. There have been some decent results during those six months, but he has been unable to generate any real momentum. The defeat to the Italian world No. 1 was his third loss in a Grand Slam final and second loss in seven months. It added to the sense that he has been becoming tennis’ nearly man for some time. Former world No. 1 Andy Roddick recently called him the best men’s player not to win a major.

The manner of the defeat, meanwhile, demonstrated how lacking in confidence Zverev is and how difficult it is for him to impose himself on opponents. Rinderknech often produced an outstanding performance, but Zverev’s passivity also handed him the initiative. The German allowed his opponent to take control and rush the net, where he won 44 of 55 points.

Zverev stands at 6 feet 6 (198 cm) and boasts phenomenal power when he chooses to tee off, but he often simply exchanges groundstrokes and hopes his opponents will make mistakes. Rinderknech, who got tight at several key moments, did make them, but Zverev could not keep him behind the baseline long enough to force the issue.

It’s a tactic that works for him more often than not against players of Rinderknech’s level, but it leaves him vulnerable while playing the role of antagonist, rather than protagonist, which is atypical for a world No. 3. Rinderknech possesses a huge serve that is particularly potent on grass, and it helped him get out of trouble throughout. He saved nine break points, including five in the first set, which Zverev had much the better of but ended up losing in a tiebreak.
After Zverev evened things up, he let out a huge roar, and it looked as though he would return the next day to finish the job. Instead, Rinderknech flipped the script and broke twice in the third set to get himself ahead. Zverev couldn’t convert any of the four break points he had in the fourth set, then found himself down 5-3 in a tiebreak. From there, he produced a rare display of aggressive bravery, including a 135 mph second-serve ace to go up 6-5. Zverev shouted at his box after nicking the set, but it was another situation in which it took a desperate scoreline to bring out his best tennis.
And he couldn’t sustain that level in the decider. Rinderknech, 29, broke early in the decider and, having blinked in the fourth-set tiebreak with the finish line in sight, held his nerve to record only the second top-10 win of his career. He earned three match points with a foray to the net, and after two tight misses, he swept away a backhand to take the upset.

Zverev is the 12th men’s seed of 32 to exit Wimbledon in the first round this year. Rinderknech will face lucky loser Cristian Garín of Chile in the second round Wednesday. For the German, the exit confirms the sense that he’s going backwards, regressing from nearly man to not even close.