How Zverev found 'big satisfaction' in 2024 season
pIs a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alexander-zverev/z355/overview'Alexander Zverev/a poised for a a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a hat trick?/pp
The German, who triumphed at the season finale in 2018 and 2021, is riding a wave of momentum as he enters this year’s edition on a five-match win streak following his dominant run to the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/paris/352/overview'Rolex Paris Masters/a title. It marked Zverev’s seventh ATP Masters 1000 crown — and his second this season after also claiming the Rome title./pp
After a successful comeback season in 2023, during which Zverev qualified for Turin, the 27-year-old has now firmly reestablished himself at the sport’s biggest events./pp
“In 2023, I didn’t feel like I was competitive in big events, I was far away from winning them. Being able to compete and make Grand Slam finals, win Masters 1000 events, that is a big satisfaction to me because there were obviously question marks if I was ever going to do that again after the injury,” Zverev told ATP Media when reflecting on his 2024 season. /pp
“It was the first year where I was competitive again in big events. I’m happy with where I am.”/p[ATP APP]
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Now setting his sights on another significant stage, Zverev is making his seventh a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/nitto-atp-finals/605/overview'Nitto ATP Finals/a appearance. Since 2017, the only year he did not qualify for the season finale was in 2022, when he was forced to shut down his year at a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/roland-garros/520/overview'Roland Garros/a due to a severe ankle injury./pp
The field of eight players consists of just two former champions: Zverev and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/daniil-medvedev/mm58/overview'Daniil Medvedev/a. The Hamburg native is the only player competing that has won the event multiple times. [Seven-time champion a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a qualified but is not competing.]/pp
“I think coming in and playing one of the best eight players in the world straight off is a very difficult thing to do. You have to be focused, you have to be ready from the get go,” Zverev said. “I’m looking forward to this week.”/pp
Boasting a season-leading 66 match wins, Zverev is placed in The a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/john-newcombe/n044/overview'John Newcombe/a Group alongside a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/carlos-alcaraz/a0e2/overview'Carlos Alcaraz/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/casper-ruud/rh16/overview'Casper Ruud/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andrey-rublev/re44/overview'Andrey Rublev/a. Zverev will begin his campaign Monday against Rublev, who the German leads 6-3 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series./pp
“[He's a] powerful, extremely fast player,” said Zverev, World No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings. “He tries to overpower you. The most important thing against him is to not let him.”/pblockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"Your 2024 Champions. A new era. ????a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NittoATPFinals?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#NittoATPFinals/a a href="https://t.co/VRWm1BcejT"pic.twitter.com/VRWm1BcejT/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1854646890249277620?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"November 7, 2024/a/blockquote script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script