Rennae Stubbs labels Alexander Zverev as 'delusional' after lacklustre final showing: "He lumps himself in there with Alcaraz. Bro, what? The delusion"

Alexander Zverev was on the end of another nasty defeat to world number one Jannik Sinner in the Madrid Open final. After losing a ninth match on the trot against the Italian, he labelled Sinner to be far ahead of the rest of the tour, putting himself, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic in the bracket behind. Rennae Stubbs has questioned this take by Zverev, calling him 'delusional' for putting himself along with players of that calibre.

Zverev was soundly thrashed 6-1, 6-2 by a rampant Sinner in under an hour. While the four-time Grand Slam champion was on song, Zverev was very much off the pace. He would succumb to another devastating defeat to someone he simply cannot beat.

After the final at Caja Magica, he sat down with the press to debrief the match, and that led to him offering high praise to the champion. "I think there’s a big gap between Sinner and everybody else right now—it’s quite simple," he stated.

However, something he commented after got people talking, including Stubbs. "Then there’s another gap between Alcaraz, myself, maybe Novak Djokovic, and the rest. So I think there are two gaps at the moment."

The six-time doubles Grand Slam champion offered a brutal response to this take by the world number three. “I mean he just kept saying that, but he lumps himself in there with Alcaraz. Bro, what? The delusion," she said on the Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast.

She referenced what Zverev could have said instead. "And here’s the thing. If he had said this, my respect level for him would go up. If he said, ‘Look, bottom line is, I’m a really good player. I get to a lot of finals. I get to a lot of semis. I usually beat every player,’ – which is not the case, because who did he lose to the week before?

“Like, ‘I usually win X and Y matches, but the standard between Jannik and Carlos is clearly, as you can see by the points category, head and shoulders above me. I need to improve and figure out a way to even remotely push these two guys’."

The Aussie could not believe that Zverev, who had won zero Grand Slams, put himself on par with the youngest player to complete the career Grand Slam. “That I would be like, respect, right? But to lump himself in with Carlos Alcaraz, who has literally won every major title, all of them, all four, by the age of like 21 is insanity. Okay? And yet this guy, who has not even won a Grand Slam, is saying that he’s in that same category. Dude, what?"

She diverted her attention to the final, pondering whether there was anything wrong with Zverev that saw him put up such a lacklustre performance. “Can I add, the final was so bad, and he looked like a petulant child," she said. "And I know apparently from what Jim Courier said, he didn’t think he was 100%. Whether he was injured or what was going on. But he looked like a petulant child who was in the sandbox and had thrown all his toys out and did not even think to dig his way out of anything. He tanked the last few games.”

Stubbs switched her focus to Sinner, marvelling at his impressive streak of form. His title in Madrid was the first time he tasted success in the Spanish capital. It was a fifth Masters 1000 title on the spin and fourth in 2026, currently unbeaten in his last 23 matches.

“I mean, it’s really possible he might not lose," Stubbs suggested. "If Carlos Alcaraz is not playing, chances are Jannik might not lose a match this year. And looking at that final, he looked like he was playing, you know when you’re a really great player and you go and play juniors and you know no matter what, you know you’re not going to lose? That’s what he looks like."

She believed that he had the overall game, and that only one player could get the better of him. “He has every shot in the book now, serve, volleys are great, his touch around the net, his forehand, his back, he moves, his mentality. The guy is unbelievable. The only person that’s going to beat him this year for the rest of the year is a guy that’s not playing right now, and that’s Carlos Alcaraz. Unbelievable.”

With no Alcaraz in the Rome Open, Sinner will be the red-hot favourite to clinch a first title in Rome, completing the Masters 1000 collection and cementing his name even deeper as a future tennis legend.