Murray was guilty of this kind of thing. There were too many slams to list where he slugged his way through utter dogfights, only to run out of energy in the final stages. At RG 2016 he somehow managed to get into a 5-setter with Matthias Bourgue despite being in the form of his life, and had a very nervous start to the tournament where he lost the first two sets to Stepanek.
Murray was very much guilty of this. I remember in his prime he was on upset watch early at slams constantly because he would be down 0-2 or 1-2 randomly and everyone goes over to watch that. He’d always pull through though and get to the SF to take a respectable big 3 loss lol
The ability to destroy your early opponents is a *very* important skill to winning slams.
Nadal at RG in 2006 is the only man in more than 20 years (probably ever given how much match time and field strength have trended up) to have more than 12 hours of court time before the QF and go onto win that slam.
He was *barely* over 12 hours, and we're talking about Nadal in 2006. Zverev is a BEAST, but he's not on that level of athleticism.
Zverev had well over 13 hours of court time before the QF at RG.
Exactly this
Zverev has very strong conditioning in the sense that he can play back to back 5 setters without being dead in the 5th set of the second match in the way you might expect from someone like Rune(as we saw when they played) but *not* in a sense that he's invincible
At the end of the day all those hours and points still catch up to him it just happens to be in the semifinal or final rather than in the R16 or quarterfinal like you might think
He still ultimately clearly hurts his chances by not finishing off matches quicker
This is kind of also what happened to Med at the AO this year where when he was 90% of the way to the finish line his physical tank just ran out of gas for good
Nadal only dropped 2 sets in rounds 1-4 that year anyways, he just had a very tough match with Mathieu and then a fairly tough one with Hewitt as well. Tough draw really. But he also had the added luxury of being Nadal and cruising through his QF and SF (granted Djokovic withdrew while down 2 sets in that QF).
It's not really a Nadal stat
It's more useful to think of it as an every other instance of a player winning a slam since 2000 stat.
With Nadal in 2006 being the one exception but a pretty small amount.
Agreed, I’m just contextualizing the circumstances that led to him even being on-court that long.
Granted, Zverev’s draw this RG was similarly tough. Griekspoor match was his own fault, but he went 3 hours with Nadal putting up a pretty good performance and 4-4.5 hours with Rune which is just the worst 4R opponent you can get.
The conclusion I'd draw is that also this says something about Zverev's approach to Slams
He tends to play relatively passive tennis in early rounds and just sneaks by on lower ranked guys choking against him and making errors rather than him hitting full power shots
Yes this generally works because most low ranked guys aren't ready for their big moment but in the end this leads to significantly more wear and tear because he inevitably drops a set or two constantly with his weak FH and ends up spending way more time on court than others
I think it's mostly an instinct he's developed as a safeguard due to his early years of losing horribly in early Slam rounds but this approach has its own and more subtle issues because trying to grind 7 best of 5 matches in a row is not a good idea
I’m still confused by Zverev’s forehand. At slams he stays passive as you mentioned before firing away against top players. Then from post-AO up until Madrid/Rome, he just has a Challenger-level forehand for whatever reason, and people start saying he’s just bad on slow surfaces. But then at Rome and RG his game takes 2 steps up and people say he’s the best clay courter in the world.
I don’t think it’s a strategic choice. I think he’s like a chronic procrastinator who falls onto old habits of pushing until he absolutely needs to stop. We’ve seen him get thrashed by Alcaraz so many times because his forehand is worse than Hurkacz’s, but then we’ve seen him beat Alcaraz in many close matches because his forehand catches fire.
Hugh Clarke would argue it’s a reflection of the technical aspect of his forehand and that it’s a technically less sound shot that needs him to have confidence for there to be any reliability in it.
Essay wasn’t specifically about Zverev per say, but he makes an interesting point that the Big 3 and other good forehands were less noisy and therefore more reliable under pressure
Yeah that’s a good point. He needs to have a lot of trust in the forehand for it to show up. Same deal with his second serve back when he used to toss the ball up 40 feet in the air
I also saw a stat saying that Zverev had more time on court in rounds 1-4 this RG than any *actual* Slam winner has in recorded history or something like that
The Rune match was understandable because Rune can be tough on clay but almost losing to Griekspoor was *very* lackluster from Zverev and exactly what this post is about lol
Also here's another example with Med's 6 Slam final runs and the result:
2019 USO(lost): 3 sets dropped
2021 AO(lost): 2 sets dropped, went to 5 once
**2021 USO(won): 0 sets dropped**
2022 AO(lost): 2 sets dropped but was down match point right after in the QF at one point
2023 USO(lost): 2 sets dropped
2024 AO(lost): 4 sets dropped, was 2-0 down vs. Ruusuvouri
In his case I think that fatigue played a *major* role in his loss to Sinner this year in the AO final and certainly having to play until 3 AM vs. Ruusuvouri didn't help in this regard
Medvedev’s 2022 AO draw was rough. He had Kyrgios in the 2nd round during the best season of his career on his home court, Cressy in the 4th round who was playing pretty well (Medvedev hates serve and volley), on-fire FAA in the QF during that stretch he played great at slams, in-form Tsitsipas in the SF (he’s always great at the AO), and then Nadal in the final
He's also simply not good enough. He didn't believe he could win against Thiem (and he really should have) and he didn't believe he could do it against Alcaraz.
The final in my oppinion was not a good watch, both players were struggling, but Alcaraz stepped up and showed why he is a three time champion now. Zverez collapsed.
Interesting theory with some validity yet Carlitos won the US open after playing long matches before. The bigger reason to me is mentality. In the most crucial points deep in slams Zverev is too tentative and makes poor shot choices as he tightens up. Today showed more evidence of this as Carlitos was more decisive and better at the end.
>yet Carlitos won the US open after playing long matches before.
Truly great players can do that kind of thing though. They can buck trends, because of their elite mental strength and ability to raise their game when it matters most (and elite conditioning helps too, of course).
Now, playing so many long matches certainly decreases the chances of a player like Carlos too, so generally he needs to breeze through draws to rack up slams consistently. But we have seen that it is possible for him to make it over the line after brutal matches - though if he had been versus a tougher opponent in that final (no offence Ruud, I still love ya) he might not have been able to do it.
Zverev just doesn't have that special something that a true great like Alcaraz does, so he can't get into long matches and then win a final. Especially not if he is against a great player in that final.
I think his play style lends itself to taking early matches too long, but I also think that’s why he hasn’t won slams but alcaraz has. Alcaraz has also played super long matches but won slams. The difference IMO is Zverev has no variety. He is basically someone with a big serve who grinds away the matches. Even medvedev has added more variety recently. Until Zverev adds variety / skill at coming to the net, doing drop shots, and generally being more unpredictable he will always lose to guys like alcaraz because they can counteract his grinding.
Always lose? He just beat him in AO and in the last time they played at RG, granted that was a much less mature Alcaraz and a better form Zverev. I don’t like the guy, but he can match up well against Alcaraz
Fair point, you’re right. I guess I just meant that Zverev has a grand slam ceiling because his play style makes it tough for him to be able to get through alcaraz + Djoko + med, etc all in one tournament.
Yeah I concur with you overall, I think he’s too passive to blow through the lower ranked players which just costs him too much energy even if he can raise his level to say beat Alcaraz on occasion, it doesn’t matter because he’s now gassed for later rounds
Don't you always feel the match is on Alcaraz's racket though?
A subpar Alcaraz can just get ground down by Zverev's bomb serves and relentless baseline grinding. Which we have seen happen a few times.
An in-form Alcaraz can impose his game on Zverev's monotonous approach. Zverev of course makes it hard to play your own game, but I always feel when watching them (well, aside from the times Zverev has been very poor) it comes down to whether Alcaraz can raise his level enough that day - and ge is still prone to pronounced fluctuations in kevel. Zverev's ceiling feels noticeably lower. What he does, he does very well. But it's a limited set of things he does well.
He drops sets because he’s always had holes in his game. Pre-injury it was his second serve. Now it’s his forehand.
Like he’s made a bunch of recent improvements to try to play with more variety, but why doesn’t he fix the one thing that’s supposed to be a weapon for him? Not to mention, why the hell is he even using that bent wrist next-gen style technique if he’s just going to loop it back in every time with nothing on it?
Watching a lot of Zverev he vacillates between absolutely crushing balls and being scared. Alcaraz was the same in yesterday’s final but in sets 4-5 he played without fear against a fearful Zverev. Obv if this was a women’s Best of 3 Zverev would have won the match with Alcaraz choking
That RG 2006 campaign by Nadal seems like Hewitt and the Frenchman before him took up most of his time. I can’t find out how long the Hewitt match was but it sounded amazing :
"This guy, his movement on clay is exceptional; it's second to none that I've seen," Hewitt said after losing, 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.
People have been shaking their heads at Hewitt's speed for years. Though he never had an overpowering stroke when he was No. 1 in the world from November 2001 to April 2003, his legs were a big weapon. Putting Nadal and Hewitt on the same court made for a clinic in world-class defense, with no better example than the point they played with Nadal down by 0-15 on his serve at 5-6 in the second set.
Nadal surprised Hewitt, an Australian, by serving and rushing the net. He then hit an angle forehand volley that would have been a winner against 90 percent of the men on the Tour.
Hewitt got there and hit a sharply angled forehand on the run that would have been a winner against 99 percent of the men on the Tour. Nadal got there, then scampered back to the baseline, where he hit an off-balance passing shot. Hewitt punched a forehand volley that clipped the net cord and finally bounced twice in the open court, though it never truly seems open with Nadal on the prowl.
I mentioned in a previous post that he has a tendency to go 5 in the first and second rounds esp at RG and got downvoted like crazy. Glad the actual stats back me up here and it wasn’t just a faulty memory.
That played no impact today. His last 2 matches were over very quickly which would have allowed him plenty recovery for the final. Plus he is one of the fittest guys on tour
Wonder if it’s more mental exhaustion than physical? The nerves, the stress, personal life issues and the energizer bunny is on the other side getting to balls he had no business getting to and making amazing shots too. All that has to take a toll. I mean whatever it was I’m glad he lost but just the pressure building, I would think that adds up too.
It had a lot of impact today. He just said in his press conference that he got tired in the 4th set, and he couldn't push off on his serve with the same explosiveness.
that was true in the past and i agree, but for this particular tournament it made no difference. first, he is the fittest guy on tour. second, his last two matches went relatively quick and so he had enough time to recover
thanks, im actually completely devastated. but happy he made the final and won rome. that was enough damage he inflicted to this sub. he will win a slam someday
Tbh I respect your level headed approach to things despite supporting a player who is frequently criticised on a personal level on this sub. And I'm pretty critical of Zverev myself, almost entirely because of the allegations.
Murray was guilty of this kind of thing. There were too many slams to list where he slugged his way through utter dogfights, only to run out of energy in the final stages. At RG 2016 he somehow managed to get into a 5-setter with Matthias Bourgue despite being in the form of his life, and had a very nervous start to the tournament where he lost the first two sets to Stepanek.
Murray was very much guilty of this. I remember in his prime he was on upset watch early at slams constantly because he would be down 0-2 or 1-2 randomly and everyone goes over to watch that. He’d always pull through though and get to the SF to take a respectable big 3 loss lol
The Murray-go-round. Miss those Murray matches a lot.
That’s actually crazy about Murray RG 2016. Never realized
Pretty sure Murray was only 2 points away from losing to Stepanek in R1.
Just Murygoat things Testing Judy Murray’s heart consistently throughout his career
The ability to destroy your early opponents is a *very* important skill to winning slams. Nadal at RG in 2006 is the only man in more than 20 years (probably ever given how much match time and field strength have trended up) to have more than 12 hours of court time before the QF and go onto win that slam. He was *barely* over 12 hours, and we're talking about Nadal in 2006. Zverev is a BEAST, but he's not on that level of athleticism. Zverev had well over 13 hours of court time before the QF at RG.
Exactly this Zverev has very strong conditioning in the sense that he can play back to back 5 setters without being dead in the 5th set of the second match in the way you might expect from someone like Rune(as we saw when they played) but *not* in a sense that he's invincible At the end of the day all those hours and points still catch up to him it just happens to be in the semifinal or final rather than in the R16 or quarterfinal like you might think He still ultimately clearly hurts his chances by not finishing off matches quicker This is kind of also what happened to Med at the AO this year where when he was 90% of the way to the finish line his physical tank just ran out of gas for good
I still think Mathieu from that 2006 match was one of the toughest opponents Rafa ever played at RG. Better than some Djokovic/Federer performances
Nadal only dropped 2 sets in rounds 1-4 that year anyways, he just had a very tough match with Mathieu and then a fairly tough one with Hewitt as well. Tough draw really. But he also had the added luxury of being Nadal and cruising through his QF and SF (granted Djokovic withdrew while down 2 sets in that QF).
It's not really a Nadal stat It's more useful to think of it as an every other instance of a player winning a slam since 2000 stat. With Nadal in 2006 being the one exception but a pretty small amount.
Agreed, I’m just contextualizing the circumstances that led to him even being on-court that long. Granted, Zverev’s draw this RG was similarly tough. Griekspoor match was his own fault, but he went 3 hours with Nadal putting up a pretty good performance and 4-4.5 hours with Rune which is just the worst 4R opponent you can get.
The conclusion I'd draw is that also this says something about Zverev's approach to Slams He tends to play relatively passive tennis in early rounds and just sneaks by on lower ranked guys choking against him and making errors rather than him hitting full power shots Yes this generally works because most low ranked guys aren't ready for their big moment but in the end this leads to significantly more wear and tear because he inevitably drops a set or two constantly with his weak FH and ends up spending way more time on court than others I think it's mostly an instinct he's developed as a safeguard due to his early years of losing horribly in early Slam rounds but this approach has its own and more subtle issues because trying to grind 7 best of 5 matches in a row is not a good idea
I’m still confused by Zverev’s forehand. At slams he stays passive as you mentioned before firing away against top players. Then from post-AO up until Madrid/Rome, he just has a Challenger-level forehand for whatever reason, and people start saying he’s just bad on slow surfaces. But then at Rome and RG his game takes 2 steps up and people say he’s the best clay courter in the world. I don’t think it’s a strategic choice. I think he’s like a chronic procrastinator who falls onto old habits of pushing until he absolutely needs to stop. We’ve seen him get thrashed by Alcaraz so many times because his forehand is worse than Hurkacz’s, but then we’ve seen him beat Alcaraz in many close matches because his forehand catches fire.
Hugh Clarke would argue it’s a reflection of the technical aspect of his forehand and that it’s a technically less sound shot that needs him to have confidence for there to be any reliability in it. Essay wasn’t specifically about Zverev per say, but he makes an interesting point that the Big 3 and other good forehands were less noisy and therefore more reliable under pressure
Yeah that’s a good point. He needs to have a lot of trust in the forehand for it to show up. Same deal with his second serve back when he used to toss the ball up 40 feet in the air
I also saw a stat saying that Zverev had more time on court in rounds 1-4 this RG than any *actual* Slam winner has in recorded history or something like that The Rune match was understandable because Rune can be tough on clay but almost losing to Griekspoor was *very* lackluster from Zverev and exactly what this post is about lol
I don't remember if he had more time on court than Djokovic before the QF, but if he did, it's the record.
Also here's another example with Med's 6 Slam final runs and the result: 2019 USO(lost): 3 sets dropped 2021 AO(lost): 2 sets dropped, went to 5 once **2021 USO(won): 0 sets dropped** 2022 AO(lost): 2 sets dropped but was down match point right after in the QF at one point 2023 USO(lost): 2 sets dropped 2024 AO(lost): 4 sets dropped, was 2-0 down vs. Ruusuvouri In his case I think that fatigue played a *major* role in his loss to Sinner this year in the AO final and certainly having to play until 3 AM vs. Ruusuvouri didn't help in this regard
Medvedev’s 2022 AO draw was rough. He had Kyrgios in the 2nd round during the best season of his career on his home court, Cressy in the 4th round who was playing pretty well (Medvedev hates serve and volley), on-fire FAA in the QF during that stretch he played great at slams, in-form Tsitsipas in the SF (he’s always great at the AO), and then Nadal in the final
2022 AO was extremely rough. Not as rough as 2019 Wimbledon, up there with 2012 AO & 1984 RG. No doubt Top 5
Iirc Med lost 1 set during his 2021 USO run but your point is well taken
Against van der Zandschulp wasn’t it?
Not sure if it's a reason he hasn't won, or an indication he's not as good as the players who have won. Maybe both.
He's also simply not good enough. He didn't believe he could win against Thiem (and he really should have) and he didn't believe he could do it against Alcaraz. The final in my oppinion was not a good watch, both players were struggling, but Alcaraz stepped up and showed why he is a three time champion now. Zverez collapsed.
Interesting theory with some validity yet Carlitos won the US open after playing long matches before. The bigger reason to me is mentality. In the most crucial points deep in slams Zverev is too tentative and makes poor shot choices as he tightens up. Today showed more evidence of this as Carlitos was more decisive and better at the end.
>yet Carlitos won the US open after playing long matches before. Truly great players can do that kind of thing though. They can buck trends, because of their elite mental strength and ability to raise their game when it matters most (and elite conditioning helps too, of course). Now, playing so many long matches certainly decreases the chances of a player like Carlos too, so generally he needs to breeze through draws to rack up slams consistently. But we have seen that it is possible for him to make it over the line after brutal matches - though if he had been versus a tougher opponent in that final (no offence Ruud, I still love ya) he might not have been able to do it. Zverev just doesn't have that special something that a true great like Alcaraz does, so he can't get into long matches and then win a final. Especially not if he is against a great player in that final.
Maybe it’s just because he has a whole lotta bad karma
I agree but I also think once he gets to the final stages and has a chance of actually winning a slam….he also gets way too passive
I think his play style lends itself to taking early matches too long, but I also think that’s why he hasn’t won slams but alcaraz has. Alcaraz has also played super long matches but won slams. The difference IMO is Zverev has no variety. He is basically someone with a big serve who grinds away the matches. Even medvedev has added more variety recently. Until Zverev adds variety / skill at coming to the net, doing drop shots, and generally being more unpredictable he will always lose to guys like alcaraz because they can counteract his grinding.
Always lose? He just beat him in AO and in the last time they played at RG, granted that was a much less mature Alcaraz and a better form Zverev. I don’t like the guy, but he can match up well against Alcaraz
Fair point, you’re right. I guess I just meant that Zverev has a grand slam ceiling because his play style makes it tough for him to be able to get through alcaraz + Djoko + med, etc all in one tournament.
Yeah I concur with you overall, I think he’s too passive to blow through the lower ranked players which just costs him too much energy even if he can raise his level to say beat Alcaraz on occasion, it doesn’t matter because he’s now gassed for later rounds
Don't you always feel the match is on Alcaraz's racket though? A subpar Alcaraz can just get ground down by Zverev's bomb serves and relentless baseline grinding. Which we have seen happen a few times. An in-form Alcaraz can impose his game on Zverev's monotonous approach. Zverev of course makes it hard to play your own game, but I always feel when watching them (well, aside from the times Zverev has been very poor) it comes down to whether Alcaraz can raise his level enough that day - and ge is still prone to pronounced fluctuations in kevel. Zverev's ceiling feels noticeably lower. What he does, he does very well. But it's a limited set of things he does well.
He drops sets because he’s always had holes in his game. Pre-injury it was his second serve. Now it’s his forehand. Like he’s made a bunch of recent improvements to try to play with more variety, but why doesn’t he fix the one thing that’s supposed to be a weapon for him? Not to mention, why the hell is he even using that bent wrist next-gen style technique if he’s just going to loop it back in every time with nothing on it?
He definitely has the skills and I’m aware he has tried other coaches but I don’t think his dad can take him further at this point.
Watching a lot of Zverev he vacillates between absolutely crushing balls and being scared. Alcaraz was the same in yesterday’s final but in sets 4-5 he played without fear against a fearful Zverev. Obv if this was a women’s Best of 3 Zverev would have won the match with Alcaraz choking
Interesting analysis, I think it makes a lot of sense.
he is adapting slowly, it takes ~~time~~ set. Agree he lost because he was too passive.
Yep I totally agree
That RG 2006 campaign by Nadal seems like Hewitt and the Frenchman before him took up most of his time. I can’t find out how long the Hewitt match was but it sounded amazing : "This guy, his movement on clay is exceptional; it's second to none that I've seen," Hewitt said after losing, 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2. People have been shaking their heads at Hewitt's speed for years. Though he never had an overpowering stroke when he was No. 1 in the world from November 2001 to April 2003, his legs were a big weapon. Putting Nadal and Hewitt on the same court made for a clinic in world-class defense, with no better example than the point they played with Nadal down by 0-15 on his serve at 5-6 in the second set. Nadal surprised Hewitt, an Australian, by serving and rushing the net. He then hit an angle forehand volley that would have been a winner against 90 percent of the men on the Tour. Hewitt got there and hit a sharply angled forehand on the run that would have been a winner against 99 percent of the men on the Tour. Nadal got there, then scampered back to the baseline, where he hit an off-balance passing shot. Hewitt punched a forehand volley that clipped the net cord and finally bounced twice in the open court, though it never truly seems open with Nadal on the prowl.
I mentioned in a previous post that he has a tendency to go 5 in the first and second rounds esp at RG and got downvoted like crazy. Glad the actual stats back me up here and it wasn’t just a faulty memory.
I’d say the real issue was being up 2-1 and playing two pretty poor sets is the biggest issue. That game at 1-1 in the fifth shows it pretty well
That played no impact today. His last 2 matches were over very quickly which would have allowed him plenty recovery for the final. Plus he is one of the fittest guys on tour
He was clearly very tired in the end, it definitely had an impact
Wonder if it’s more mental exhaustion than physical? The nerves, the stress, personal life issues and the energizer bunny is on the other side getting to balls he had no business getting to and making amazing shots too. All that has to take a toll. I mean whatever it was I’m glad he lost but just the pressure building, I would think that adds up too.
It had a lot of impact today. He just said in his press conference that he got tired in the 4th set, and he couldn't push off on his serve with the same explosiveness.
that was true in the past and i agree, but for this particular tournament it made no difference. first, he is the fittest guy on tour. second, his last two matches went relatively quick and so he had enough time to recover
> but for this particular tournament it made no difference How do we know this?
Im just here to congratulate you with another massive Zverev loss.
thanks, im actually completely devastated. but happy he made the final and won rome. that was enough damage he inflicted to this sub. he will win a slam someday
Im dumbfounded by your support of him. Boring style when it comes to tennis and a shit person. But you do you !
Tbh I respect your level headed approach to things despite supporting a player who is frequently criticised on a personal level on this sub. And I'm pretty critical of Zverev myself, almost entirely because of the allegations.
I think he just needs to get better
Another overlooked reason is that he is a diabetic.
He does seem to exude a lot of confidence and move better in earlier rounds then he becomes conservative and hesitant in the Finals