Alexander Zverev has been dubbed the best player “never to have won a Grand Slam” title by former world No.1 Andy Roddick. The German has reached Slam finals on three occasions, but finished the runner-up each time.
His most recent loss came in earlier this year when he was beaten by Jannik Sinner in the Australian Open final, having also lost the French Open final the previous summer. And according to Roddick, there isn’t a single better player in the history of the sport to have failed to clinch a Grand Slam title.
Speaking to the Tennis Channel, he said: “When Zverev was playing [Rafael] Nadal a couple years ago, Roland Garros broke his ankle and couldn’t put any weight on it? At that point, did we think that he would reach a career-high ranking in 2024? Probably not.
“The biggest mark against him is that he’s not Roger [Federer], Rafa [Nadal], Novak [Djokovic], [Carlos] Alcaraz, or [Jannik] Sinner. The biggest knock is that he is pretty clearly the best player to have not won a major at this point in his career. And I’m not talking about right now — ever.”
When pushed on what a Slam win would do for his legacy, Roddick continued: “Does he want to be the best player to have never won a major? Or does he win a major and he goes past people like me and [Daniil] Medvedev and all these other people who his career statistics stack up favourably against, except for the ranking and the major.
“It’s this weird thing where I’m not going to criticise someone for being elite. At majors specifically, because he has to talk about it so much, there is an extra pressure set there… It’s just the margins. I’m not going to criticise someone and pretend like they haven’t accomplished a lot because they haven’t accomplished the thing.”
Zverev will get another chance to end his Grand Slam wait this summer when he returns to Wimbledon. Unlike the other big competitions though, the 28-year-old has never made it past the fourth round at the All England Club.
However, his grass court season has got off to a strong start, with Zverev reaching the final of the Stuttgart Open last week. He’s looking to back that up with a strong showing at the Halle Open, where he’s already into the second round following a straight-sets win over Marcos Giron.
Content Source: www.express.co.uk