ATP Final: Zverev – “Victory would be a dream”

The last match against Roger Federer was won by Alexander Zverev. In London, Germany’s number one wants to top the list on the third day of the ATP final.

It was in the hot preparation phase for the tennis world championship, when Alexander Zverev was asked about his relationship with Roger Federer. Zverev pondered for a moment, then he said a little hesitantly:”I think we have become friends recently,”Zverev says,”we both like each other. But for me, he is still the great idol. At the Laver Cup, a highly acclaimed show fight, Zverev and Federer had been in a team in Prague at the end of September, and Federer even made a joke out of coaching the younger one occasionally.”It was all crazy”, says Zverev.”Federer as coach whispering the tips into your ear”.

Now the fun is over for now. Tuesday evening will be a serious day for Zverev and Federer, then the strong German debutant and the six-time champion of this season’s finals in the London 02-Arena will face each other. It is a showdown of two world championship opening winners, a duel but also of two formative player types of this amazing year 2017. As they have often appeared at the global Centre Courts in recent months, they also appeared at the start of the World Cup: Federer as the hands-on sovereign of the two-stage victory over the American Jack Sock. And Zverev against the Croatian Cilic as a man with a youthful storm and impulse, as an impressive fighter, who can also put aside adversities and setbacks on the way to the happy end.

The 20-year-old from Hamburg often experienced bitter lessons in 2017, which he also understood as a lesson, as an invitation to improve. Zverev, the happy and satisfied 6-4,3-6,6-4 World Cup winner against Cilic, sums up what he always demands as a professional:”If you don’t show 100 percent every second, if you don’t work and hone your skills, you have nothing to try in this business. A sentence that could also have come from Federer, the Maestro, who invented himself over and over again in all the triumphant years – and who always took care to train even more efficiently and effectively to reform his game.

There is also one thing that links young Zverev to the 16-year-old Federer, who played the part of this epoch, perhaps the best of all time: a team of helpers, assistants and consultants who do everything they can to prepare the boss’s optimal performance and assist him silently. What many good to very good players persistently fail to find in this travelling circus, in the past also various DTB-professionals, namely a first-class, suitable support crew, Zverev has already managed to do in the start phase of his promising career – also because he looked closely at what the determining pros of this time, thus Federer and Nadal, did today’s tennis, which only works in one.

Sure: father Alexander Zverev sen and mother Irina are still the leading stars in the universe of the shooting star, but the tennis company is no longer a pure family affair. The English fitness coach Jez Greene, an authority in the industry, has been making Zverev’s feet fast for years, and the renowned physiotherapist Hugo Gravil has been helping to ease the tour stress. And since this season, former No. 1 man Juan Carlos Ferrero has also had a keen eye on Zverev, coach and manager of Zverev. Team Zverev doesn’t have to hide from anyone in the scene, but at the same time it also offers the young boss something like a replacement family on the road. I still enjoy this nomadic life,”says Zverev.

Twice in 2017, Zverev and Federer met on their travels. At the Gerry Weber Open, Zverev won a bitter final, but the second comparison in the summer was symptomatic of the year of the Immer-Wiederrappelns. The 20-year-old won the Masters finale in Montreal, and it was also a decisive milestone in the early World Cup qualification. The Hamburg man has now scared away the initial nervousness and stage fright at the World Cup premiere as the winner, and now he wants to strike Federer in the big blow:”A victory against him, on this big stage, that would be a dream.