The boys’s skilled tennis tour is not going to punish Alexander Zverev, the German star, in reference to allegations that he assaulted his girlfriend in 2019.
After a 15-month investigation, the ATP Tour announced Tuesday that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the allegations and that it could take no disciplinary motion against Zverev.
The ATP commissioned the investigation after Zverev’s former girlfriend Olya Sharypova, a Russian former tennis player, said that Zverev repeatedly abused her during confrontations in Recent York, Shanghai, Monaco and Geneva.
The investigation was conducted by The Lake Forest Group, a third-party consultant, working with the ATP’s outside legal counsel, the Florida-based firm Smith Hulsey & Busey. The ATP issued a news release but didn’t publish a full report.
Zverev and Sharypova each cooperated with the investigation, which included extensive interviews with them, in addition to relations, friends and other tennis players. Investigators also reviewed text messages, audio files and photos, a few of which got here from a forensic evaluation of Zverev’s phone. Sharypova didn’t file criminal charges against Zverev.
Zverev has denied the allegations and said he supported the ATP carrying out an investigation. The allegations appeared each on social media and in a lengthy article in Slate published in 2021.
“From the start, I actually have maintained my innocence and denied the baseless allegations made against me,” Zverev said in an announcement Tuesday. “I welcomed and fully cooperated with the ATP’s investigation and am grateful for the organization’s time and a focus on this matter.”
Zverev has also sued Slate, and a German court ruled after a preliminary hearing that the evidence presented within the article was not sufficient under German law to justify the impact on him. That call stated the article needed to have enough balance that it didn’t leave the impression that Zverev was guilty of the acts Sharypova accused him of committing.
Zverev, the Olympic gold medalist in men’s singles in 2021, continued to play through the investigation and recorded a few of his biggest wins during that point, including on the tour’s season-ending ATP Finals. He severely injured an ankle in June 2022 within the semifinals of the French Open but returned to playing competitively late in the autumn; he played in January within the Australian Open, where he lost within the second round. After the loss, he said he had yet to regain his fitness or his form from before the injury.
“I’m grateful that that is finally resolved and my priority now’s recovering from injury and concentrating on what I like most on this world — tennis,” he said in his statement Tuesday.
Sharypova didn’t immediately reply to a message looking for comment on the investigation. In 2021, she said she didn’t need to discuss her story, writing in a message, “I don’t need to live in my memories of the past anymore, since it’s too hard for me. I need to live in the current and be engaged in making myself completely happy.”
Massimo Calvelli, the chief executive of the ATP, said the tour had pursued an “exhaustive process” within the investigation. He said the investigation had “shown the necessity for us to be more responsive on safeguarding matters,” including protection of players, their partners and anyone directly connected with the tour. The ATP plans to rent a director of safeguarding within the near future.
