According to Alexander Zverev, considering the Masters tournaments are now 12 days long, top players have less time to recover from their extended absences from home.
Out of nine Masters events, five are 12-day, 96-player draws that are one tier below the grand slams. To improve the experience for fans, the ATP announced in March that two more will follow suit next year.
Last year, Madrid and Rome were added to the roster. Ahead of the Italian Open, Zverev stated that competing in such large-scale back-to-back events was not ideal.
Zverev criticized this ATP scheduling in the latest interview and said: “The two-week Masters 1000 events are great for players ranked between 50 and 100 in the world because they get a chance to play a main draw event. It’s not great for top-10 players. It’s as simple as that. Yes, you do get told you have a day in between; you don’t have to play every day. At the end of the day, that’s not resting. Resting is when you’re spending time at home, sleeping in your bed, maybe with your family, your dogs, or your kids, right?”
He added: “A day between matches; if you’re at a different place, that’s not resting. If you’re going deep in events and you’re trying to make the semi-finals or finals of every event, you’re just away a lot longer and you have to work a lot more. If we have an 11-month season, like we have now, it’s simply not enough time. It’s not enough time to rest your body. It’s also not enough time to physically prepare your body. Physical preparation isn’t how much you practice on court, but how much you play. It’s how much work you put in the gym, on the track, and outside the court that you can’t do during the season.”
Zverev in Rome, ranking, and results in 2024
Now the world no.5, the German has managed to achieve an overall 25-9 match record in 2024. Zverev is currently playing in Rome where he ousted the world no.70 Aleksandar Vukic 6-0 6-4, the world no.54 Luciano Darderi 7-63 6-2 and the world no.53 Nuno Borges 6-2 7-5.
Alexander Zverev will compete against the world no.13 Taylor Fritz in the quarter on Wednesday at 8:30 pm on CENTER COURT. Their current head to head is 4-3 for Zverev.
Alexander has won 1 title in 2024 in Australia.
The German won 22 titles in his career: 8 on hard courts, 7 on clay courts and 7 on indoor courts. (See the list of his titles)
Zverev is scheduled to compete next at the French Open (French Open). He will begin to play the tournament from the main draw that will commence on the 26th of May.
Alexander Zverev |
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