He then refused to file a complaint. “At the end of the day, if it’s within the rules with the time between points, I can’t say anything against it because it’s within the rules. If he extends the time, he gets a time violation, so it’s pretty clear.”
Stating that the shot clock went to zero several times while the jump was underway, Khachanov placed the blame on the chair, not the opponent, and admitted he had received the same complaint.
“I’m not the guy who would ask the referee to look at it. I don’t like to do that. I don’t like it when competitors, I think in some situations they mark me, even though I’m honestly averaging 12 seconds or 15 seconds per point. I think it’s the referee’s job to notice and be more aware and not really pick on him.
A two-week countdown
The routine has been one of the main themes of this tournament on social media, where bounces have been tallied match-by-match and cut point-by-point. The most widely circulated figure is 12,040 initial bounces through Zverev’s first five matches, which is derived from fan counts rather than verified tournament statistics and is best viewed as an estimate.
The range, reported by outlets, is 18 or 19 jumps before a normal delivery, reaching around 25 at some points.
I saw the statistics. Like, I bounced it 12,000 times or something. It’s pretty funny.
Zverev has seen the numbers and cannot take them into account. “I have no idea why,” said the German leader after reaching the final. “I don’t do it on purpose. I saw the stats. Like, I jumped 12,000 times or something. It’s pretty funny.”
He does not work, he says, to achieve the goal. “I don’t count in my head. I don’t get a specific number or anything like that. I don’t know why it has increased so much. I think it went down again today because I saw it before the semis, so I was like, well, I have to go less. Then every now and then I forget about it, and then it goes up, I don’t know what number it is.”
When asked what finally made him stop and serve, he was no closer to an answer. “No clue. Really, honestly, no idea.”
The rule
The 2026 Grand Slam rulebook allows a maximum of 25 seconds from the time the ball goes out of play at the end of a set until the ball is hit for the next first serve. It says nothing about how many times the ball can be hit within that window, and it doesn’t put a clock at all between the first serve and the second, requiring only that the second be hit “without delay.”
A first offense results in a time violation warning. After that, the server exceeding the limit loses the first serve and the receiver concedes the point. The same section also allows the umpire to call a timeout before the 25 seconds are up if the receiver is delaying the server’s reasonable tempo, which Khachanov said has been raised about him by opponents.
Zverev plays Ben Shelton in Sunday’s final.