Alexander Zverev has made peace with horror French Open injury as he nears return

Zverev says he is at peace with the injury considering it came as he was giving his all to achieve a lifelong dream.

The 25-year-old saw a promising season cut short and it might have become easy to get lost in thoughts of what might have been.

He admits that the injury layoff has been tougher on him mentally than he thought it would be, as mini-setbacks sent him on a rollercoaster of emotions.

He has taken the view of accepting what has happened but he moves forward with a fresh perspective.

In a recent interview, Zverev said: "For the initial injury. You know, you broke seven ligaments.

"You need surgery, you need time to heal, but the things that come during and you know, I thought I was going to play or a few months before I did.

"And then obviously all those setbacks you have got to accept. That was a little bit unfortunate but things happen I can live with it. I can live with it as well because it happened during the semi-finals of the French Open while I was trying to achieve a lifetime goal.

"It didn't happen snowboarding or skiing or something like that. It wasn't a stupid accident.

"You know at the end of the day I realized what life without tennis is like now because before that you don't think about it when you're travelling 11 months a year you're just in the tunnel kind of in your way you're just continuing to do the same thing over and over again.

"You don't appreciate it. Appreciate playing in front of the biggest stadiums in the world you don't appreciate the greatest cities in the world.

"So that made me miss those things and I think hopefully I'm ready for something new and something big."

Zverev takes confidence from the fact that his early season form allowed him to hold the World No 2 spot for some stretch despite his injury layoff, and had he been fit sooner he might even have made the ATP Finals in Turin.

"Probably two weeks before Turin I was still making Turin, still in the race to Turin so it could have been quite a nice and good season. To be honest.

"Especially I think the match against Rafa in Paris was very high level and both of us were at our absolute limits."

Zverev will make his return to the court at an exhibition event in Saudi Arabia that has attracted some big names for a three day event from 8 to 10 December 2022.