Alexander Zverev might have reached the Australian Open final in January, but since then, it’s been a pretty turbulent 2025.
The German player was thrashed in the Melbourne final by a rampant Jannik Sinner as he defended the Australian Open title, which he won for the first time 12 months previous.
Since then, his confidence appears to have been knocked and having sat as the world number two when Sinner was banned for three months, he’s wasted a golden chance to close the gap at the top of the rankings.
On Sunday, Carlos Alcaraz went above Zverev into second place on the list and it leaves the player hopelessly striving to revive his form and get back to his best ahead of the French Open.
John Isner delivers advice to Alexander Zverev
Isner came close to reaching a Grand Slam final when he got to the semi-final at Wimbledon in 2018 and he also made two quarter-finals at the US Open.
However, he never got over the line, even if he did sit in a lofty eighth place on the list of ATP world rankings in July 2018.
Isner has some advice for Zverev as he goes in search of a maiden Grand Slam title, which he’s come desperately close to on three occasions, losing in a trio of finals.
He told the Nothing Major podcast: “Sascha, it might be time to hit that button. I don’t know how he has been in this situation before, where he hasn’t been in place and had some bad results. I don’t know what exactly he did to get out of that rut. Did he hit the practice courts harder or take some time off?
“For me, it’s to step back away from the game a little bit. Put the rackets away for four or five days and clear your head. His game is still clearly there. I don’t think it’s a situation where he needs to go out and pound a million balls on court to get that feeling back, but it’s a surprising result for him.
“So a little bit of panic time for him, especially as he has the French Open finals and those points coming off his record. He had an opportunity to get to number one in the world with Sinner gon,e and he has completely botched that.
“I do think ultimately he will be fine but I think for Sascha in particular it is step back from the game a little bit, clear his head and take the court in Munich when he plays next, so he has had some time off after his lose in Monte Carlo and goes to his home country, he should be fine.”
Rankings blow will do Zverev good
Losing a third Grand Slam final will have hurt Zverev and clearly there has been a hangover from that setback, given how badly he played in the final.
His form since then has been abysmal with first-round defeats coming at Indian Wells and at the Monte Carlo Masters last week.
Yesterday, he overcame Alexandre Muller at the Bavarian International and perhaps dropping down to number three in the world rankings will do him some good.
Zverev has talent in abundance and as they say, form is temporary and class is permanent.
It’s only a matter of time before the 27-year-old kicks on again and he will hope to time his good form just in time for the French Open next month.
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