Finalist Once Again

The Australian Open Men’s Singles final pitted the top two ranked players in the world back in January, as defending champion and world number one Jannik Sinner took the court against Alexander Zverev, the second-ranked player in the world

But as the match would soon illustrate, there is a significant gap between the one and two sports in the ATP World Tour rankings. Sinner cruised to the third major title of his career with a 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-3 victory over Zverev, which left the latter doing a lot of introspection of his own game.

“In general, Jannik is better than me at the moment,” he reflected in his post-match press conference. “It’s as simple as that…at the end of the day, he deserves to win. He’s the best player on hard courts right now.”

Zverev heaped a lot of praise onto Sinner, and deservedly so, as the Italian has a firm grip on the world number one spot and has won the last three hard-court majors. Zverev had to stand there during the ceremony while someone else was handed the trophy, something he has done three times in his career, having fell in the 2020 U.S. Open final and the 2024 French Open.

In that same press conference, he discussed how painful those moments are.

“I think it’s very difficult to give an on-court speech after you lose a Grand Slam final,” he said. “I’m doing everything I can. I’m working as hard as I ever did. I think I’m doing all the right things off-court. I think I’m practicing the right things, but I lose in straight sets today. Those are the facts.”

A helpful moment came on that stage, when Sinner turned to Zverev, and offered him some helpful, and much-needed, words of encouragement.

“I was quite down. I was also quite emotional in that stage,” Zverev recalled. “I think he [Sinner] saw that. He said that I would definitely lift one of those trophies in my career. I’m too good not to. That’s his words.”

He continued:

“It was a little bit of a tough moment for me because I really went into the final and also the preparation today, I really thought I had a very good chance because I was feeling good. I was feeling the ball quite well. I was feeling like I can compete. It was just a difficult moment for me. I mean, now for the third time, seeing somebody lift the trophy, me standing next to that is difficult because there’s nothing more I want than to be able to hold one of those trophies in my hands.”

Zverev now hopes he builds off of runs like this, and lean into the old sports cliché that you can learn more from your losses than wins. But it is a hard pill to swallow in the moment, and he has to be left wondering how he can get over that proverbial hump.

Andy Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open champion who also lost his fair share of major finals, discussed the predicament Zverev has in his recent podcast.

“Imagine you winning that competition for two weeks and then losing to one person and people [saying] that’s a failure,” said Roddick. “That’s a weird place to be and that is kind of where Zverev is right now.”

Zverev remains one of the best players in the world. He is one of six players all-time to climb as high as number two in the world without having lifted a major trophy, and his problem doesn’t seem to be one of confidence, however, it’s a lack of conviction in the biggest moments of those matches that have left him on the losing side of the net in those three matches.

Famed tennis coach Patrick Mouratgolou offered his thoughts on what is holding Zverev back.

“I don’t think that Sascha loses this Grand Slam final, at least the last one, because he doesn’t believe enough. I think he does believe,” he said. “But I think that there’s still things he’s lacking in his game. He improved, for sure. He’s No. 2 in the world now, he came back stronger, and I think he added a lot of things to his game. When it comes to the big moments, he lacks being bold, being aggressive, taking the risk, and taking the match; really taking it. He pushes himself to do it, but it’s not natural yet. I think he needs more time. I think he needs to do it more and more, and find better efficiency.”

Despite not winning a major yet, Zverev’s resume is impressive. He was the youngest player since Novak Djokovic to crack inside the Top 20, and has gone on to win the end-of-year ATP Finals twice (2018 and 2021), an Olympic Gold Medal in singles in 2020 (played in 2021 due to COVID-19), and 23 tour-level singles titles which includes seven Masters 1000s events. There is just one thing missing from that cache of accolades.

The first step in achieving something is having the belief that you can do it, which is something Zverev has, despite his shortcomings thus far. And just like in every sport, there comes a time when playing to win instead of playing not to lose has to happen, which is the part that Zverev has struggled with in the biggest moments of those three major finals.

If Zverev can channel the best version of himself, and throw caution to the wind when he is competing against the Sinner’s, Alcaraz’s and Djokovic’s in the late stages of those tournaments, then there is no reason he can’t be on the better side of the Grand Slam trophy ceremonies before his time playing professional tennis comes to an end.

“I don’t want to end my career as the best player of all-time to never win a Grand Slam, that’s for sure,” he confessed. “I’ll keep doing everything I can to lift one of those trophies.”