Alexander Zverev reiterated that he is in great shape, despite the fact that the season is almost over and all the players are tired. The German champion needed some time to completely overcome pneumonia, which affected him especially during the Rolex Shanghai Masters and the Vienna ATP 500.
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Sascha played his best tennis at the Rolex Paris Masters the last Masters 1000 of the season where he deservedly triumphed and gained confidence for the final event on the ATP calendar. At the Nitto ATP Finals, the world number 2 who has already won this tournament in 2018 in London and in 2021 in Turin defeated Andrey Rublev and Casper Ruud without losing a single set.
Despite winning two matches, the player from Hamburg is still not sure if he will reach the semifinals. However, Alexander will only need to win a set against Carlos Alcaraz on the final day of the group stage on Friday. Zverev has never hidden that he really likes this surface, because it enhances his skills from the baseline and enhances his excellent serve. Right now, Sascha is the second favorite to lift the trophy on Sunday behind world No. 1 Jannik Sinner. The Italian ace has won two matches just like the German and will face Daniil Medvedev today.
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Sascha is changing some things
The feeling is that Sascha is changing some things compared to previous years. The German is practicing a lot, often even after playing official matches, and has a more aggressive attitude on the court. His season has been very consistent indeed, which is why he has surpassed Alcaraz in the ATP rankings despite the young Spaniard winning two Major titles this year. However, that passive attitude has been fatal to him in Grand Slam tournaments (especially in decisive rounds).
A good match. I thought both of us played quite good tennis, said Zverev, who has won 68 matches in 2024. Im happy with the win. Maybe it was even better than my first match, even though the first match was quite good as well. Im looking forward to Carlos now on Friday and hopefully more matches at the weekend he added.
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Sascha has a record of 16 wins and 9 losses at the ATP Finals. It means Im old! But I still dont feel old. I hope I have another solid 10 years ahead of me, but I think its a young group of guys. There has been kind of a shift in tennis this year and I think its a good thing. Theyre exciting new players and everybody loves watching them he stated.
Everyone knows that Alexander's goal is to win a Major title in 2025, which is why Sascha decided to skip the 2024 Davis Cup Finals in Malaga this year. The German champion will start his off-season immediately after the Nitto ATP Finals and will start the new season at the United Cup, which he will use to prepare well for the 2025 Australian Open.
An interesting thought
Although he loves these courts very much, Alexander would like them to be even faster and the surfaces to be more varied.
"I think when Roger Federer was still on tour, it was very different. There was big, big differences between a clay court, a hard court and indoor hard court. I'm missing that right now a little bit, Zverev said in a recent press conference.
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"I'm missing a little bit the differences in surfaces because before there was a clear difference between a clay court and outdoor hard courts. Some were very slow like in Indian Wells, but some were very fast, like Canada was always very fast, Shanghai was always very fast.
And indoor hard courts. I think we lost that a little bit by trying to make all the surfaces very similar and almost the same," he concluded.
There is no doubt that Sascha is right on this topic. The surfaces have been made very similar to each other over the past two decades to allow top players to be equally competitive throughout the season. The rise of legends such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic has helped to accelerate this process, also creating an impoverishment from a technical point of view.
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The Big 3 dominated the men's tour for about two decades, and these three legends were very competitive in all four Grand Slam tournaments. In the previous era, a champion like Pete Sampras always struggled a lot to shine at the French Open. The surfaces were different from each other and the red clay specialists prevented the American from winning in Paris.
