Alexander Zverev claims injury is well behind him ahead of French Open showdown

Twelve months ago, the German was fighting tooth and nail in his semifinal against the King of Clay himself, Rafael Nadal. But after an unlucky slide, Zverev went over his ankle, tearing all three lateral ligaments.

His absence from the tour - and a subsequent bone edema injury - would see Zverev slip from second to 27th in the world rankings.

"I couldn't play for the first seven months of my injury," reflected the 26-year-old, as per atptour.com.

"Then for the next three, four months I was still in pain, so I wasn't pain-free. I wasn't able to move the way I wanted to. But, I mean, sometimes it's also just reminding yourself of who you were and what kind of matches you have won in the past. I think that is important sometimes as well."

All that said, Zverev isn't dwelling on the past.

"I don't think about it anymore," he confirmed.

"I'm going on court to win tennis matches. I'm not thinking about what happened last year. I have to talk about it a lot obviously, and that's fine. That's everybody's job, but I'm here to win tennis matches. I'm here to go deep in a Grand Slam."

Now, the 2020 US Open finalist is back at arguably his favoured surface at Roland Garros. Zverev is 28-7 at the grand slam and Friday's faceoff with Casper Ruud will mark his third consecutive semifinal on the Parisian clay.

"It was definitely a tournament that I marked on my calendar this year," continued the Hamburg native.

"I'm happy to be playing the way I'm playing here in Paris. I'm extremely happy with how things are going. But as I said, the tournament is not over yet. There are still potentially two very, very difficult matches ahead, and I'm looking forward to that."

Zverev and Ruud have met four times before, with the German leading the Norwegian 3-1 in the head-to-head. However, Ruud has been in red-hot form over the last year, reaching the French Open and US Open finals.