ATP: Mats Merkel Series, Part 2: “Sascha Zverev has become a showpiece athlete”

Mats Merkel is scouting and coaching for Adidas. At the US Open, the 33-year-old German took care of the Taiwanese Chun Hsin Tseng in addition to his activities for adidas. In part 2 of our series Merkel talks about the interaction between physiotherapists, coaches and players.

tennisnet: Mr. Merkel. At the beginning of the year, tennis fans read that Alexander Zverev allegedly gained 15 kilograms of muscle mass. Do you think that’s realistic?

Mats Merkel: I can neither affirm nor deny that. But assuming Sascha weighs 85 kilograms and he gains 15 kilograms or transforms eight of those 15 kilograms into muscle mass, that’s almost impossible. Ten percent, yes. But 15 kilograms is significantly more than ten percent. And Sascha didn’t have seven kilograms of body fat with the best will in the world. But I’m a big fan of Jez Green, with whom I worked earlier when I travelled with Andy Murray. And I learned a lot from Jez about how players have to move in order to be more economical on the pitch.

tennisnet: What does that mean?

Merkel: But for that you need a good body. It’s not just about getting in the corner, it’s about getting out. For this you need a strong rear thigh musculature and strong quadriceps musculature, combined with a good trunk musculature. Someone like Sascha Zverev has become a showpiece athlete. He has strong legs, almost textbook thighs. If he stands on the backhand, the calf muscles are well developed. You can see how much Sascha has improved. And he has almost no physical problems anymore.

tennisnet: When is it important for young people to start athletic training?

Merkel: If you haven’t done the introduction to the deep knee bend early enough, no dead lifts, then it’s almost critical. It’s also not about the players doing this in the youth with a lot of weight. It’s about doing the exercise, about automation. And it is not only about becoming stronger, but also about mobilizing, protecting. Many of these exercises are also preventive exercises.

tennisnet: At the US Open you worked together with Chun Hsin Tseng, who already had a physiotherapist at his side. How important is the coordination with this?

Merkel: If you intervene properly in movement sequences such as the serve, then as a trainer you need the physio at your side. He has to bring the player so far that the players can do what a coach expects them to do. As Alex Stober does with Günter Bresnik, for example, so that Dominic Thiem is able to implement what Günter wants. Or what a father of Tsitsipas wants. And you can’t overestimate the influence a good physio can have on a team.

tennisnet: Günter Bresnik said a year or two ago that Denis Shapovalov was such a good athlete that he would have become world class in other disciplines as well. A natural talent for movement. Is there such a thing more often on the tour?

Merkel: Andy Murray, Dominic Thiem, and Denis Shapovalov are athletes for me who would have become world class in every sport. Fortunately, they decided to play tennis. On the other hand, Bastian Schweinsteiger, for example, was a very good tennis player in his youth, who then decided to play football. Fortunately for German football. He did not make the wrong financial decision either.