"Does he want to be the best player to have never won a Major?" - Andy Roddick on the pressure facing Alexander Zverev
ATP
With the Wimbledon Championships fast approaching, German tennis star Alexander Zverev will face a different set of challenges as he attempts to finally add a Grand Slam title to his resume, says retired American pro Andy Roddick.
The World No.3 has finished runner-up at Grand Slams on three different occasions, the 2020 US Open, 2024 French Open and 2025 Australian Open. Zverev has fallen short each time, and the pressure continues to build as these opportunities to etch his name in tennis history pass him by.
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Zverev could be remembered for a different achievement, says Roddick
On the latest episode of his Served podcast, Roddick elaborated on how much winning a Grand Slam title means to Zverev. Once touted as the future of men's tennis after the Big Three era, the German has been overtaken by the likes of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
"The biggest mark against him (Zverev) is that he's not Roger, Rafa, Novak, Alcaraz or Sinner," began Roddick. "The biggest knock is that he is pretty clearly the best player to have not won a Major at this point in his career.
"Because he has to talk about it so much, there is an extra pressure set there. Does he want to be the best player to have never won a Major? Or does he win a Major and he goes past people like me and Medvedev and all these other people who his career statistics stack up favorably against except for the ranking and the Major."
"Because he has to talk about it so much, there is an extra pressure set there. Does he want to be the best player to have never won a Major? Or does he win a Major and he goes past people like me and Medvedev and all these other people who his career statistics stack up favorably against except for the ranking and the Major."
Zverev will get a chance to warm up for the upcoming Wimbledon Championships as he competes at this week's Halle Open in front of a home crowd. The former Olympic gold medalist will face American Marc Giron in the opening round on Wednesday.
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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