Alexander Zverev has fulfilled his destiny and finally won a grand slam title, but his complex legacy will endure.
In the summer of 2017, I sat with Alexander “Sascha” Zverev and his parents, Irina and Alexander Snr, in the leafy surrounds of Buckinghamshire’s Stoke Park – the exclusive venue for the Boodles grass-court exhibition.
As we conducted a 20-minute interview, the Zverev family could not have been more helpful. But I still remember that afternoon for its bad vibes. As Zverev’s match approached, a member of his entourage lost patience with our photoshoot, strode up to the photographer – whom he claimed was delaying Zverev’s entrance to the court – and grabbed him fiercely by the shirt-front.
Alexander Zverev celebrates his maiden grand slam win with his mother, Irina Zvereva, after winning the French Open final. Zverev himself looked startled by the incident, which he had certainly not instigated. And yet, that first meeting proved to be a harbinger of what was to come. As much as one respects Zverev’s tennis, as much as one acknowledges his persistence and dedication, his achievements on the court are so often occluded by … stuff.
Allegations of domestic abuse, violations of COVID-19 protocol, altercations with umpires, tactless remarks about fellow players – all these factors have since filtered into the perception of Zverev as the chief anti-hero of the tour, at least since Nick Kyrgios faded out of the picture. Add in the rugged but unromantic way that Zverev plays – all long levers, pounding groundstrokes and deep positions behind the baseline – and it is little wonder that at least two-thirds of Sunday’s crowd at the French Open final on Court Philippe-Chatrier was backing Flavio Cobolli.
Some believe the criticism to be unfair. We should stress that the claims of Zverev’s ex-girlfriend Olga Sharypova – who alleged that he had suffocated her with a pillow and hit her head against a wall – were investigated over 15 months by an independent agency hired by the men’s tour, which found no evidence to support them.
And that Brenda Patea – the mother of Zverev’s daughter, who made separate claims that he had pushed her against a wall and choked her – ended up settling out of court. Perhaps we should attempt to strike these allegations from the cognitive record completely, like a jury instructed to disregard unproven facts. But there is no denying that, in the COVID summer of 2020, Zverev was twice caught on camera violating social-distancing protocols.
Nor that he was ejected from the 2022 Mexican Open for thrice clanging his racket against the umpire’s chair. The general impression is that Zverev is a bit of a brat. One suspects he has been treated as special since he was a prodigiously talented junior, touring the world alongside older brother Mischa – the former world No.25 who is known for his contrastingly charming manners, and who now serves as Sascha’s agent.
Irina described her younger son’s behaviour as a small child in that first interview I did with him in the summer of 2017.
“With Sascha, especially, we know when we want something to stop, one of us must lose to him at something – tennis, cards, backgammon. There’s no other way. And then after he’s happy, we can go to dinner or go to sleep,” she said. AP Photo/Thibault Camus Again, some people will challenge this picture.
But then some people tend to perceive all tennis players as superior human beings simply because they are good at hitting fuzzy yellow balls over a three-foot net. If you really doubt the “brat” label, try this message from former world No.1 Juan Carlos Ferrero, who coached Zverev in the latter part of 2017.
When their collaboration broke up, shortly after the 2018 Australian Open, Ferraro wrote: “I had different ideas what is the way to be a professional out of the court: like eat, have rest, how to deal with rest of people of the team. ”Again, there are two sides to every story.
In addressing the same split, Zverev claimed that “we had kind of a fight after the Australian Open … and there was a moment where he was very disrespectful towards everybody in my team”. But when the same sorts of things keep happening to the same person, one finds oneself adapting Mario Balotelli’s aphorism and asking “Why always him?
” After the umpire’s chair incident in Mexico, Zverev wrote in a statement that: “I am going to take the coming days to reflect on my actions and how I can ensure that it will not happen again. I am sorry for letting you down. ” Zverev celebrates the win with his entourage, including brother Mischa, third from left, father Alexander Zverev Sr, second from right, and mother Irina, second from left.
There is evidence that Zverev, now 29, has lived up to his words, to some extent at least. His reaction to a critical line-calling error in the fifth set of the 2024 French Open final against Carlos Alcaraz was unexpectedly mature and gracious, as he told reporters that, “umpires make mistakes. They’re also human and that’s OK.
” And his present team – which includes Andy Murray’s former fitness trainer Jez Green – has now stuck with him loyally for years. I would also suggest that Zverev deserved his moment in the sun on Sunday night.
As a consistent achiever on the tour for a decade, it feels appropriate that he should finally land the goal he spelt out in January, when he said: “I don’t want to end my career as the best player of all time never to win a major”. Even so, this is still a man with a PR problem.
Despite the warm and relatable emotions displayed after his five-set victory, when he embraced his family and backroom staff with red clay still clinging to his back, it may take Zverev a few more years to erase all those black marks from his record.
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