It's Time We Talk About Alexander Zverev...

what if I told you a couple of years ago that there would be a player who would go on to defeat Federer four times Nadal four times jokovic four times win two ATP Finals titles Olympic gold along with many other things and yet not win a grand slam would you believe me it kind of sounds like one of the best players maybe ever to never win a slam Alexander Zev is only 27 years old and will certainly have many chances to win a grand slam throughout his career although he just lost the 2024 Roland G to alcaraz losing a grand slam final for the second time after taking the lead dare I say I have an unpopular opinion about Alexander verett tennis is just as mental as it is physical and US fans tend to draw different lines in the sand on who we consider to be a mentally strong player there are players like Novak who literally everyone knows are the gold standard or reference point for mental resilience in tennis and then there are the players where such discussions only create a debate because not everyone agrees Alexander Zev happens to find himself in this category he has a near Flawless record when it comes to being disciplined from the Baseline his endurance is even better for a player who suffers from type 1 diabetes which we're going to talk about later in this video Sasha's ability to recover from long grueling five Setters doesn't get talked about enough why is that Sasha hasn't had the best record against top opponents and now in Grand Slams before 2023 Zev had only five wins out of 21 matches played against top 20 players at slams those terrible losses to FAA at Wimbledon in 2021 and to Dennis shopov Olive at the 2022 Australian Open were especially frustrating for fans zov's stat against top 20 players at slams has now improved to 13 and 20 but looking at his record against top 10 players doesn't help it's 4 and 16 zov's only wins against top 10 players at slams happen to be against Carlos alcarez at Roland garos in 2022 yanic CER at the 2023 US Open Carlos alcarez at the Australian Open this year and Casper Roode at Roland garos this year now that's a really terrible record on paper but when it comes to best of three tournaments which is literally everything outside of slams Sasha's record is a lot better another thing worth noting is how good Sasa has been in recovering from setbacks he chokes in that 2020 US Open final and then follows it up with the best season of his career in 2021 he suffers that nasty ankle injury in 2022 and comebacks strongly re-entering the top 10 in 2023 zov has been the product of years of consistent work at a super high level he's been a top seven player since 2017 and the only year he finished outside the top 10 was in 2022 when he broke his ankle and was ruled out for the rest of the season however I should point out that one of the biggest reasons why fans have an issue with Sasha is not just because of his inferior record against top 10 players at slams it has more to do with how he usually loses some of those matches from winning positions he was up two sets and then lost to Dominic team in the 2020 US Open final at the Australian Open semi-final earlier this year Sasha was also up two sets and then ended up losing to medvid and in the just concluded roling garos final he was up two sets to one before going on to lose that match the general complaint is that usually Sasha becomes way too passive when he's in a leading position so let me ask you guys a question at this point does this sample size mean that a player with more big titles than Medvedev is mentally weak truth be told these bad experience and losses don't help Sasha and we could assume that there's a lot of mental Scar Tissue building up but before we conclude that this is a mental thing 100% I would like to make an argument that it is more to do with the fact that Zev paid the price for not being able to adapt his game as fast as he should have done over the years here's one thing that has changed though Zev like meddev is a big serving counter puncher those huge serves come with unusually good returns and exceptional movement for his height I mean you could get into the neutral Baseline rallies with Sasha all day and he won't miss a shot he's insanely consistent from the back of the court and has the endurance to back this style of play he's also one of the more clutch players when it comes to under pressure points now Sasha has been getting a lot of free points on his first serve but his second serve was a major weakness it used to leak double faults all the time I won't be doing a tournament recap this week since we have some big stuff in the works for Wimbledon and on the merch front but rest assured we'll be getting back to them very soon we can see how high ver of's second serve toss was and by the time the ball made contact with his racket there could would only be one outcome a double fault so I got a be in high school physics but I do know that a higher Ball Toss creates higher potential energy which leads to Greater kinetic energy when the ball comes in contact with the racket so by tossing the ball a little bit higher he can gain some extra zip on a serve however the trade-off for that extra speed is less control and consistency which only leads to more double faults not to mention that if you're playing in windy conditions a high toss doesn't do you any favors for Sasha a player who naturally already has a lot of zip on his serve it just didn't make sense to toss the ball so high at one point it almost felt like Sasha was getting the Jitters on his serve he either double faed or the second serve was so weak that opponents capitalized on it predictably Sasha lowered the toss on his serve and we saw the numbers dramatically improved over the last couple of years as you can see on the screen take a look at the difference between the double fault percentage in 2019 and now this season looking at this stat as well we can also see how much Sasha's toss has dropped with a lower being easier to replicate and also easier to disguise zov has been able to drive up not only the first serve win percentage but also the percentage on the second serve now that's a lot of improvement and it's probably one of the major factors behind his Resurgence when it comes to ground strokes we already know that Sasha has one of the best backhands on tour the close stance and shoulder turn on his two-hander and the clean contact point with the racket head over the ball comes with a lot of power and consistency and of course Zev already has the length to work with it's really beautiful to watch but unlike what some fans think I actually think that Sasha's forehand is great for a top level player it's just not as well-rounded as other parts of his game and he tends to be too passive he doesn't take much risk and he tends to get dragged into these crosscourt rallies this relative weakness on the forehand is probably one of the biggest reasons Sasha only has a 65% win percentage at Wimbledon and hasn't even reached the quarter final I should also mention that zv is way better at hitting shots from a high contact point and on a Surface like gras where opponents can trouble you by keeping the ball low it becomes very difficult for players like Sasha my point being Sasha has made improvements to his game over the years but it hasn't quite been enough to get him over the hump at slams another aspect of his game that could be better are his volleys in my rol ando's final analysis I showed a number of instances where Zev allowed alcarez back into a point just because his volleys weren't good [Applause] enough let me say the vol are still not at the level Sasha would want them to be it's also clear that a serve plus one or second shot after the serve doesn't often capitalize on the offensive power that Sasha generates on his serve with a few areas of improvement Zev needs to put his nose to the grindstone because you definitely need more strategic options at your disposal when playing some of these big finals we saw how meddev switched up on Center in the first two sets with insane levels of attacking tennis at the Australian Open final this year and we saw how it paid dividends personally I would love to see Sasha become a lot more aggressive especially in these Grand Slam matches that might very well be what he needs to do to win these finals at 27 years old I don't see zov making a huge adjustment to his game but with constant little improvements here and there he actually could be on course to win multiple slams while he's excellent at PACE absorption I also want to see him generate a bit more power as well himself because in that French Open final alcar has played into this weakness by playing a lot of moon balls against him on some occasion we've seen players block back returns to regularly draw Z into net and force him to hit those forehand approach shots knowing that it's a shot that he can occasionally struggle to generate his own pace on and when he doesn't do enough damage on the forehand it then becomes very easy to hit him with a straightforward pass Z has started to move towards the net more often but we all know he's never likely going to be anywhere near as comfortable as he is on the Baseline I know all of this is easier said than done but I can imagine a world where we haven't seen Peak Alex Ander ver just yet I'll admit that his Peak might not be too far off from what we're seeing now but it is possible that we see those extra adjustments being made in the coming weeks and months some fans have suggested that for zov to improve his already excellent game he might need to change his coach throughout his career zov has worked with a number of coaches Juan Carlos Ferrero from 2017 to 2018 Ivon lendel from 2018 to 2019 D ferer from 2020 to 2021 and Sergey Bugera not to mention his father mother who's always been in the picture back in 2018 Juan Carlos Ferrero complained that Sasha wasn't very professional saying that he came late to training sessions and only trained when he wanted to now we can assume that's all in the past but I'm eager to know your thoughts do you think that Z's inability to find a working partnership with a coach outside of his dad is holding him back in any way having touched on Sasha's mentality game and coaching let's now switch gears and zoom in on comparisons with his peers we'll then talk about his personal identity and type 1 diabetes before addressing the elephant in the room between 2017 and 2020 Sasha was arguably the best in his generation he literally won everything apart from the slams I even remember him winning the 2018 Madrid Masters without even being broken the entire tournament correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think any player has managed to do that in a Masters 1000 tournament before 2020 zv was up 5 to1 in his rivalry against Medvedev but around that same time he was one in five against Stephano cipas nothing much has changed in that regard if anything it's gotten worse Sasha has lost six out of his last seven matches against Medvedev you could make an argument that he was still playing his way into form last year anyway he now Trails Medvedev 7 to2 and is 5- 10 against cipas who he lost to earlier this year in Monte Carlo drawing parallels with the best players in his generation my theory remains correct that Sasha got past at some point just because he couldn't evolve his game fast enough but now he's back and Well on track to to becoming that Superior player once again however with Carlos alarz and yanic sinner destroying literally everyone zov probably has his work cut out for him if he wants to beat these guys on a consistent basis that might mean having to find a better balance between passive play and aggressive play and also needing to be able to fluidly adapt to that balance depending on the circumstances zov is easily one of the most polarizing players on tour and everyone has an opinion of who they consider him to be be for Netflix he's a hero on the ATP Tour some fans would argue he was always the atp's Golden Boy others see him as a sore loser who isn't the most gracious in defeat yet another group thinks he's a true champion but again for a significant number of fans he's seen as uh a questionable person who used to abuse umpires and also had some DV cases to settle now everyone might have their opinions on the type of persons ver is and really you can't say that there are any right or wrong answers when it comes to these opinions it's also interesting to see how wide the spectrum is with respect to what people think of him both as a player and as a person strictly speaking about his tennis I think Zev is easily one of the most resilient guys on tour he's shown that no matter his medical condition there's no limits to what he can achieve as a player zov let us know in August 2022 that he is type 1 diabetes and that he was diagnosed at 3 years old he also launched the Alexander Vera Foundation a char to support people with diabetes competing at the highest level with a chronic medical condition isn't the easiest thing in the world and I think zov deserves all the respect in that regard before now it wasn't talked about that much but now more and more fans are becoming aware zov wasn't even allowed to inject himself with insulin on the court before but after the international diabetes foundation and the JDRF criticized tournament organizers at the French Open measures were put in place to allow him to use his insulin on the court imagine playing the biggest match of your life where you not only have to worry about your nerves strategy and opponent's tactics but also your blood sugar if the sugar levels are too high it becomes a problem if it's too low it's also a problem so he constantly has to maintain the right levels and with all of this Sasha's levels of endurance are even better than players without this condition that is insane however this video wouldn't be complete without addressing the elephant in the room now we already know that the DV cas against him has been dropped here's what Sasha had to say which probably won't go down too well with everyone but take a listen for yourselves that is Innocents they're not going to drop the case if you're guilty at the end of the day I don't know what translations you have but that's what it means I never ever want to hear another question about the subject again H let's dissect the issue here guys domestic violence is something that must be condemned and there's no place for it in our society so when someone is accused of something as serious as that we see a lot of public scru and rightfully so Sasha's case with Brenda Paya dragged on for years and sides were picked as to whether he was innocent or guilty let's have a look at the press release now this court case originally began as a protracted custody battle with Sasha's ex-girlfriend because she wanted full custody of their child while he wanted joint custody it was then revealed that she had abuse allegations against him the court then issued a penalty order that carried a hefty fine with it which was almost half a million EUR plus an admission of guilt maintaining his innocence Sasha then rejected this and appealed for a criminal trial for which he wasn't required to attend in person with cross-examination now required the prosecution withdraws the case Sasha is awarded joint custody and she doesn't get any money he is however required to pay about 200,000 EUR to cover the settlement fees with a major part going to the State Treasury and about €50,000 going to nonprofit organizations this means that at the end of the day there was no ruling because the witness expressed her wish to end the trial with the defendant also agreeing to terminate the case I'm not a legal practitioner of course nor am I an expert in these things but it's usually the burden of the prosecution to prove that Sasha was guilty whether they are able to do that or not doesn't mean he's innocent but the fact that he got the joint custody didn't appear in court didn't pay his ex-girlfriend any money and the prosecution also withdrawing their questioning probably means something also the fact that Sasha challenged the ruling and requested a trial which could have put him at risk of serious legal consequences is also interesting to me it's the second incident Sasha was accused of with his ex-girlfriend Olga sharipova also accusing him of domestic violence and judging from some of his anger issues on the court and how he's lashed out at umpires many fans saw a potential Behavior pattern the ATP however ended its investigation into those claims after more than two years of insufficient evidence with the ATP Tour rule book not featuring a policy for player punishment for domestic violence charges zov continued to play and was even announced as a new member of the atp's player advisory Council in the beginning of 2024 after he was elected by his fellow players now the ATP does have a code of conduct which grants them the ability to suspend players who have engaged in what they call conduct contrary to the Integrity of the game of tennis the 2024 ATP rule book states that quote a player or related person charged with a violation of criminal or civil law of any jurisdiction may be deemed by the virtue of such charge to have engaged in conduct contrary to the Integrity of the game of tennis and the ATP m MERS fines committee May provisionally suspend such player or related person from further participation in ATP tournaments pending a final determination of the criminal or civil proceeding end quote the ATP didn't enforce this code in Sasha's case most probably because of the presumption that people are innocent until proven guilty and we saw many WTA players sort of criticize the ATP tour's decision especially when Sasha was given that position on the ATP players Council so now let's Circle back to what Sasha said that dropping the case means he's innocent the truth is is that this settlement doesn't give tennis the certainty that it wants for many months tennis fans governing organizations and players were sort of put in this legal and moral limbo but at the end of the day nothing changed this settlement means that Sasha can confidently retain his presumption of innocence however the court doesn't declare that he's not guilty either I want us to know that this isn't a verdict so it's not a decision about guilt or innocence judging from the statement we also don't know if there could be any Financial stipulation that would have gone away if a judge had formally declared him not guilty so at the end of the day all I have is a couple of questions for us to answer do you question the German legal system in any of this what would you have wanted the ATP to really do in this case suspend a player who wasn't proven to be guilty or innocent and what effect does it have on his reputation do you guys think I'm missing anything else as usual I'm all about adding context nuance and knowledge to these deep Dives about top players so that we can have well thought out and respectful discussions what are your thoughts about Alexander verev as a player and then as a person if you loved this video please hit that subscribe button and help us towards our goal of 100,000 subscribers before the end of the year and of course if there's any other video you want to see let us know in the comments until next time keep swinging