Germany’s Alexander Zverev will not face further action by ATP after the governing body of men’s tennis found “insufficient evidence” in his domestic abuse case after almost 15 months of investigation.
The ATP rendered its verdict regarding the now world no15 Zverev in a statement.
“The seriousness and complexity of these allegations required an extremely thorough investigative process and considerable resources,” ATP chief executive Massimo Calvelli said.
“It also required us to turn to specialist investigators, which was new ground for ATP”.
“We ultimately believe the exhaustive process was necessary to reach an informed judgement”.
The 25-year-old was accused of domestic abuse by his former girlfriend, Olya Sharypova, in 2020 leading to an independent investigation since October 2021 which focused on Zverev’s alleged abuse at the ATP 1000 event in Shanghai in 2019, as well as other locations including Monaco, New York and Geneva.
The investigation was carried out by The Lake Forest Group (LFG), a third-party investigator who found that “Based on a lack of reliable evidence and eyewitness reports, in addition to conflicting statements by Sharypova, Zverev and other interviewees, the investigation was unable to substantiate the allegations of abuse, or determine that violations of ATP’s On-Site Offenses or Player Major Offenses rules took place”.
In a statement, Zverev reiterated his innocence and his desire to move on from the matter.
“I am grateful that this is finally resolved and my priority now is recovering from injury and concentrating on what I love most in this world — tennis”.
The German has played just one tournament since suffering a serious ankle injury at last year’s French Open. He was recently bounced in the second round of the Australian Open by Michael Mmoh last month.
