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Alexander Zverev backhand

‘Alexander Zverev too good to not win Grand Slam, but Roger Federer has hindered him,’ says Rainer Schuttler


Alexander Zverev has been branded ‘too good not to win a Grand Slam,’ by Rainer Schuttler, although he does believe Roger Federer impacted his Australian Open preparation.

Zverev opted to skip the Davis Cup at the end of last season and instead headed to South America with Federer to play a series of exhibition matches.

And Schuttler, the German Fed Cup captain, doesn’t believe that did Zverev any favours, despite his fine run to the Australian Open semi-finals.

“Sascha is a good guy and a great player,” Schuttler told Focus.

“He will go his own way and eventually win a Grand Slam tournament. He is far too good not to win one.

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“Like many others, I was a bit surprised [by his Australian Open performance] because I did not see it coming.

“I can hardly judge it from the outside, but the long season last year, followed by the exhibition matches with Roger Federer – the preparation looked not optimal from the outside.

“Sascha must have trained incredibly hard to find the rhythm again, especially on the serve – he obviously did a great job.”


Michael Graham, Tennishead.net Editor, has been a professional sports journalist for his whole career and is especially passionate about tennis. He's been the Editor of Tennishead.net for over 5 years and loves watching live tennis by visiting as many tournaments as possible. Michael specialises in writing in-depth features about the ATP & WTA tours.