There is a theory in sports that some of the best in a sport can push the overall level forward, and these days it\u2019s being proven right in tennis. The dominance of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner is simply making everyone else better, and Alexander Zverev is the proof.<\/span><\/p>\n
Although they remain the dominant pair in world tennis, the first three months of the new season have passed without Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner playing a single match against each other.<\/span><\/p>\n We came close twice. At the Australian Open<\/a>, Novak Djokovic stood in the way, resurrecting himself as if several years younger in the semifinal and defeating Sinner. Then, a few weeks ago at Indian Wells, Daniil Medvedev played what was probably his best match in the last three years and knocked out Alcaraz in the semifinal. We were denied yet another possible meeting in Miami as Sebastian Korda proved too much for Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n No major conclusions should be drawn from this. Alcaraz and Sinner are still, by a considerable margin, the two best players in the world, and it is almost certain that for at least some time they will be the principal favourites to win every big tournament. They are extremely difficult to beat even in a single match, and specific circumstances need to align for that to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n Djokovic had to turn back the clock several years just to make a Grand Slam match competitive. Medvedev had to play his best match in three years, on a new, faster surface at Indian Wells, against an Alcaraz who was already showing signs of needing a slight reset after just two-and-a-half months of relentless winning. Their dominance, therefore, remains practically untouched. But it is fundamentally good for tennis, even when it sometimes appears otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n Not only because we are already witnessing what could become a historic rivalry, but because players like Alcaraz and Sinner make everyone else better. It may not seem that way at first glance, and perhaps even the first three months of the season do not fully reveal it, but this is a process that unfolds slowly, and you can easily miss it if you\u2019re not paying attention. Their dominance forces competitors to evolve and ultimately to try to become the best versions of themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n Zverev is a good example of this. Perhaps even the best.<\/span><\/p>\n The German has been among the top five players in the world for nearly a decade, with short interruptions, yet it can still be said that he has not come close to his best version. He has won many big tournaments and has been consistently near the top, something people probably do not appreciate enough. But the fact remains that his career still leaves a somewhat bitter taste.<\/span><\/p>\n Many are quick to say that Zverev simply does not have the mentality for the biggest moments, but this is, in essence, an oversimplification. For years, he has had the same structural issues in his game, and the truth is that his tennis has not changed much over that period. This has not only been pointed out by journalists and analysts, often too timidly, but also by greats like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Yet Zverev largely stuck to his ways.<\/span><\/p>\n There were periods when he played more aggressively, but those stretches were usually sporadic and short-lived. The core problem has always been passivity.<\/span><\/p>\n His forehand is particularly problematic in that regard. Looking at the last 52 weeks, Zverev has a 7.2% forehand winner rate per point, meaning only Alex de Minaur and Jiri Lehecka have lower percentages among top players in that span. It is a sample of 21 matches, but it is roughly in line with his career average of 7.5%. Critically, there are no major technical limitations on that forehand. The issue is not mechanical. It is dispositional, rooted in a tendency toward caution when aggression is what the moment demands.<\/span><\/p>\n In general, he has not developed much as a player over the years. His aggression has mostly relied on his serve, complemented by excellent court coverage and an ability to absorb pace. That style made him a long-term top-five player, but it proved insufficient for winning Grand Slam titles.<\/span><\/p>\n Over time, Zverev created a compounding problem: he kept losing big matches, often in the same way–by being too passive, which fed the narrative about his mentality. Meanwhile, another complicating factor emerged in the background: the direction in which tennis itself has been evolving, where ultra-aggressive play is increasingly what separates the very good from the great.<\/span><\/p>\n Ahead of this season, Zverev sat down with his team, led by his father and, for several years now, his brother Mischa, and finally concluded that certain things needed to change. He has acknowledged as much publicly, noting that he is managing to be more aggressive at times but still needs time and cannot yet be consistently effective. He has described accepting that losses will come as a direct result of this change because he is convinced it is the right path at this stage of his career.<\/span><\/p>\n It took him a long time to reach that conclusion. Probably too long. But better late than never.<\/span><\/p>\n The increased aggression is now visible in his game, and Marin Cilic felt it firsthand, losing to him in the third round in Miami in three sets. It is not just about the forehand. It is about a broader tendency to attack more: taking the ball earlier, taking more risks on second serves, finishing points at the net rather than waiting for opponents to miss. It is important to understand that this is a process, and some losses will come directly as a result of stepping out of his comfort zone and forcing patterns that did not previously exist in his game. One such instructive loss came in the Indian Wells semifinal against Sinner, where he was overly aggressive on the backhand, overcompensating in the other direction. That is what transition looks like in real time. It is messy and inconsistent and occasionally costly, but the alternative, staying the same, had already proven its limitations over half a decade of near-misses.<\/span><\/p>\n Will this make him a better player? Probably. But in his case, it may have come too late.<\/span><\/p>\n Zverev never built a winning mentality in the biggest matches, and, taken as a whole, did not evolve enough as a player during the years when evolution would have mattered most. He will soon turn 28, and his repertoire still lacks the variety that the very top of the sport demands, which is a damning assessment for a player who has spent the better part of a decade in the top five.<\/span><\/p>\n And all of it because, for years, he was not willing to look honestly at what needed to change. Until now, when the dominance of Alcaraz and Sinner has forced the issue. Because that is what players of their caliber provoke.<\/span><\/p>\n They may dominate in a way that makes most players look helpless, but in the long run, that dominance sets in motion a process that is fundamentally good for the sport. They force you to change and constantly search for ways to improve. That is why it is reasonable to believe the competition will grow stronger in the coming years, not only because there is a wave of exciting young players with genuine top-ten potential, but because Alcaraz and Sinner will push every one of them to become the best version of themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n And that is where the emergence of a potential third begins to appear. We\u2019re not predicting anything, we\u2019re not naming anybody, but it\u2019s an inevitability produced by the pressure that true greatness exerts on everything around it. The history of tennis tells us that dominant duos do not suppress competition forever. They elevate it. They set a standard so high that the only players capable of clearing it are the ones who were forced to rebuild themselves in order to try.<\/span><\/p>\n Somewhere on the tour right now, someone is doing exactly that. The Alcaraz-Sinner era will eventually produce its challenger. The only question is who gets there first.<\/span><\/p>\n Main Photo Credit: Phil Didion\/The Enquirer \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a theory in sports that some of the best in a sport can push the overall level forward, and these days it\u2019s being proven right in tennis. The dominance of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner is simply making everyone else better, and Alexander Zverev is the proof. The Duo Nobody Can Avoid Although […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5393,"featured_media":89222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,9],"tags":[564,85,5729,498,5862,13325,22],"class_list":["post-100607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-news","tag-alex-de-minaur","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-daniil-medvedev","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-jiri-lehecka","tag-novak-djokovic"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100607"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102151,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100607\/revisions\/102151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Player Who Stayed the Same Too Long<\/span><\/h2>\n
The Belated Pivot<\/span><\/h2>\n
Waiting for the Third<\/span><\/h2>\n