The tennis season is a marathon.
Trips to the track have recharged Alexander Zverev ahead of the North American hard-court sprint.
Nishikori: Shapovalov Will Be Top 10 Soon
A mid-season training block after Wimbledon has strengthened the defending Washington, DC champion ahead of the most demanding stretch of his schedule.
The world No. 3, who reached his first career Grand Slam quarterfinal at Roland Garros last month, pronounced himself healthy and fit for the North American hard-court swing.
"After Paris, I tried to get healthy, to start with, because I've been injured," Zverev told the media in Washington DC. "My hamstring had to take some rest after Wimbledon. I've done a a good two weeks of physical training. I've done a lot of tennis work, just general stuff.
"There's nothing specific about it. It was like a mini-offseason for me. I've done a lot of work to get myself ready for the hard-court swing."
The top-seeded Zverev is defending 1,500 ranking points in the coming weeks after his successive title runs in DC and Montreal last summer.
Zverev opens his DC defense against Malek Jaziri and could face older brother Mischa Zverev in their first ATP clash in the round of 16 if both brothers get there.
"In a way now I have prepared differently because I have over two weeks time," Alexander Zverev said. "And all the physical work and all the hard training work is not only for this week but also until the end of the US Open. So this was like a mini [training] block for me.
"All of my strength and conditioning stuff has been done now. So I have prepared differently for this tournament. For every tournament I play, I try to play my best and try to prepare myself the best I can to win a title."
While Zverev did not play all of his matches on stadium court during his run to the 2017 title, he's already drawing quite a crowd during his Citi Open practice sessions and he's pleased by the crowd support.
"Who doesn't love attention, right?," Zverev said with a smile. "It's great to see there is such an amount of fans in Washington as well. I love this city. This is one of my favorite cities in the U.S. Basically Washington and Miami are my two favorite cities in the U.S."
Photo credit: Alexander Zverev Instagram