Germany’s best tennis player has reached the goal of his dreams: gold at the Olympics. It is the next step in a long maturation process – which already picked up speed in 2020. A portrait.
There he sat, alone on the bench on the center court of the Tokyo tennis facility, in oppressive, muggy temperatures late on Friday evening, local time. No spectators, no cheers, just him and his success. Buried his face in a towel. Cried tears. I couldn’t believe it.
And yet: It was reality: Alexander Zverev had just defeated Novak Djokovic, the driven, the obsessed, currently the best in the world and reached the final of the Olympic Games. A rousing, gripping, at the end furious 1: 6, 6: 3, 6: 1. A roller coaster ride that would never have been possible with the Shinkansen, this express train that is always punctual to the second and a symbol of Japan.
A roller coaster ride that was only possible with: Alexander Zverev.
The “Adria-Tour” 2020 turned out to be a fiasco
In contrast to the furious catch-up against the “Djoker” was similar gold winning victory in the final against the Russian Karen Khachanov on Sunday (6: 3,6: 1) more of a relaxed opening round of a 500 tournament. But it wasn’t. The still young man from Hamburg was in the Olympic final, it was the highlight of his career so far – which, despite his 24 years, is already richer in highs and lows than any weather map. Zverev has, it seems, matured especially since 2020 – it was a turbulent year for someone who has never been so loved by the German public – is the relationship changing now? After the gold medal, in those moving days of Tokyo?
Completely dissolved: Alexander Zverev after defeating Novak Djokovic in the semifinals of the Olympic Games. On Sunday he refined his great success and won gold. (Source: Schreyer / imago images)
Just over a year ago, today’s Olympic hero is heavily criticized: In June 2020, Zverev will take part in the controversial Adria-Tour by Novak Djokovic, plays in show matches in Belgrade, for example, in front of full grandstands – in the middle of the first high phase of the Corona crisis. In addition, videos of the shirtless Zverev make the rounds at parties in Monaco – no masks, no safety distance. “You have to hold your head,” criticized the former German world-class player Nicolas Kiefer afterwards at t-online. “You wouldn’t have done it with common sense.” A little later, several participants in the tournament tested positive, including Djokovic himself.
Zverev is not among them, then publicly announces that he will be quarantined for 14 days – and is caught again just a few days later while partying. “Man, how selfish can you be?” etched his opinionated and not always easy-care colleague Nick Kyrgios. “If you are so bold as to let your management write a message on your behalf that you will go into self-isolation for 14 days and apologize to the public, then stick to it. My God, that pisses me off.”
“My father will always be my most important coach”
There it was again, the image of the arrogant snob with the gold chain around his neck, which Zverev had been following for years and which has not yet allowed the German audience to warm up. The relationship with the media: tense. Even his behavior on the court: sometimes arrogant, sometimes too dogged, sometimes unfocused. While Germany’s great tennis idol Boris Becker was the audience favorite and inevitably belittled to the “Bobbele” during his active time, he was always the approachable, the nice, the sweeping, he is still admired today for his sporting successes, Zverev and the German public have been for years at a constant distance from one another.
And his game too: his tendency to fatal double mistakes in important game situations costs him time and again matches, 220 of which he can afford in 2020, more than any other player on the tour. For a long time he smashes his clubs, he scolds, he complains – just like a gifted talent who still has to learn. Already in 2017, at the age of 20, Zverev climbed to third place in the world rankings despite all the bumps – but the big hit is a long time coming.
Learning goes really well right from the start: He grows up in a tennis household, both father Alexander Senior and mother Irina used to be active themselves, and they introduce young Sascha to tennis at the age of three, as they did before previously the almost ten years older brother Mischa. In 2011, at the age of 13, he entered the ATP Junior Tour, in 2013 he took first place in the ranking, and a little later switched to the professionals.
Alexander Zverev in 2018: The German won the ATP finals and defeated Novak Djokovic in the final. (Source: Colorsport / imago images)
“My father will always be my most important coach,” emphasizes Zverev again and again today. However: “I have to thank my mother for my good technique, she taught me that very early on. Especially my backhand comes one hundred percent from her,” he explained to the English “Telegraph” a few years ago. His father, on the other hand, taught him “physical training the Soviet way”.
Emotional outburst in New York 2020
Family man Zverev never really gets warm with some other coaches: In the summer of 2017, the former world number one Juan Carlos Ferrero tried his hand at the jewel – only to be fired again a few months later after the Australian Open in January. “We had an argument in which he was very disrespectful to the rest of the team, so I had to end the collaboration,” explains Zverev afterwards. Then he will hire the eight-time Grand Slam winner Ivan Lendl from August 2018. This partnership also ends early, in July 2019. Zverev accuses the long-time world-class player of being “more interested in his dog or in golf” than in professional coaching.
In 2020 David Ferrer, also a former world-class player, will join the team. Under the Spaniard, he reached the final of the US Open in New York – just a few weeks after the negative headlines about party videos and Djokovic’s Adria tour. 6: 2, 6: 4, 4: 6, 3: 6, 6: 7 in a rousing final against the Austrian Dominic Thiem. Zverev dramatically loses its first Grand Slam final. And still wins – because afterwards he shows his human side.
Because after the defeat it breaks out of the sometimes aloof young man: “There are some important people who are missing today. I want to thank my parents,” says Zverev in the empty round of Flushing Meadows, before his voice fails and he fails Can’t hold back tears anymore. He has to start again several times, being gripped, until he can complete the sentence. The fact that his parents could not be with him because of the Corona crisis upset him very much.
Criticism of the media: “Oh my god”
There he is, Zverev, the emotional one. He loves soccer (Bayern Munich) and basketball (NBA club Miami Heat) and once said frankly that he has real “fan moments” with Roger Federer – the Swiss is his great idol.
It hits him that the collaboration with Ferrer will end early in January 2021. Unlike his previous coaches, it seems to have worked. Ferrer said afterwards: “I’m just not the right person to help Alexander at the moment,” but the player himself dedicates moving words to him in a long Instagram post. In an interview with Eurosport added: “I didn’t want to let go of him. I loved him as a coach. For me he was the best coach – apart from my father.”
Now Papa Zverev is steering his son’s career again, and brother Mischa is also being brought into the coaching team. The results, they alternate: Quarter-finals at the Australian Open (against Djokovic), first round defeat at the ATP tournament in Rotterdam, tournament win in Acapulco, second round in Miami, third round Monte Carlo, quarter-finals in Munich, tournament victory – his 15th overall – in Madrid at the beginning of May. Then he ventures: “I have just won a Masters and there is no question in German. Oh my God,” said Zverev at the press conference after his success. When leaving, adds: “As you can see, the Germans really don’t care.”
The results since: Narrow defeat in the semifinals of the French Open against Stefanos Tsitsipas, the round of 16 at Wimbledon, where he – a bitter relapse into old and not so long past times – made 20 (!) Double mistakes against the Canadian Felix Augier-Aliassime. Now gold at the Olympics – and emotional, mature notes afterwards. “At the end of the day I want to make tennis popular in Germany. Without tennis, I wouldn’t really be someone. This sport gave me a gold medal. And I want the next generation to follow the sport too.”
A sport in which he reached the next high on the roller coaster ride of his career with the triumph of Tokyo (in the semifinals and finals, by the way: not a single double mistake!). A career that may soon take the next curve. Not down, but further up for the Anti-Becker.
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