Alexander Zverev is the leader of the new generation. During the ATP Masters 1000 tournament, he spoke about his young colleagues and the future of tennis.
“It’s not easy for us. Too much is expected of us,” said the fifth in the world ranking in an interview with ubitennis. Zverev himself has made the breakthrough on Masters 1000 level three times, the rest of his young colleagues are still lagging behind in this aspect. Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer still dominate the scene.
A fabulous 49 of the last 56 major tournaments went to the “Big Three”. Also this year, Djokovic, Nadal and Federer agreed the Grand Slam titles among each other. The three are therefore the undisputed leaders of the world rankings. Nevertheless, Zverev sees a significant increase in the performance of the new generation this year.
“I think a lot of young actors play great. Many of us are already in the top 20-30,” the Hamburg player alludes to Stefanos Tsitsipas and Denis Shapovalov. The Canadian confirmed his great year 2017, while Tsitsipas reached the finals in Barcelona and Toronto out of nowhere. The 20-year-old also celebrated his first tournament victory in Stockholm.
“Tsitsipas is doing really well. Shapovalov also handled the printing very well,” says Zverev. Karen Khachanov and Daniil Medvedev would also play a great season: “We’ll see what the future brings.”
Accordingly, the 21-year-old has no worries about tennis. The next opportunity for the Young Guns to play their way into the limelight is the Next Gen Finals in Milan. Zverev will not start in Italy, the German will concentrate on his second participation at the year-end tournament in London. It will be interesting to see whether the Madrid champion will be able to break through the phalanx of the “Big Three” on the Thames.