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Alexander Zverev Australian Open 2022

Alexander Zverev ‘will not dominate’, says Mats Wilander after shock Australian Open exit


Mats Wilander does not believe Alexander Zverev will be a dominant player in the ilk of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal.

Zverev has long been hailed as the the leader of the ‘Next Gen’ and was expected to ultimately be one of the players to replace the big four of Federer, Djokovic, Nadal, and Andy Murray.

However, he is still awaiting his maiden major title after falling in the Australian Open fourth round to Denis Shapovalov, and Wilander believes he has seen enough of Zverev now to know he will fall short of expectations.

“There’s not going to be a big four in this generation,” Wilander told Eurosport.

“There are going to seven, eight, nine, 10 guys that are going to win one of them.

“Sascha Zverev is one of them, Felix-Auger Aliassime, Matteo Berrettini.

“I don’t see the qualities in Zverev that I see in Novak Djokovic or Rafa Nadal or Roger Federer, yet.

“Sascha Zverev is not going to be dominating like them because emotionally today [against Shapovalov] I don’t think he was a top player, to be honest.”

The closest Alexander Zverev has come to winning a major so far was the 2020 US Open final in which he lost to Dominic Thiem despite taking a two-set lead.

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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.