"There is no greater honor": Alexander Zverev wants to be Germany's Olympic flag bearer in Paris

Alexander Zverev has opened up on his dream of carrying Germany's flag at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

The German player had to come back from injury earlier this year but built up success on the ATP Tour as the season went on, reaching the semi-final of the French Open, winning the German Open, and making the quarter-final of the US Open before securing the title in Chengdu in early October. This helped him to qualify for the 2023 Nitto ATP Finals in Turin.

As a result, Zverev is the highest-ranked German player in singles, currently sitting at World No. 7. Consequently, he has shared his thoughts on the possibility of carrying the flag for Germany at the Olympic Games next summer.

In an interview with Bild am Sonntag ahead of the ATP Finals, Zverev said the being the flag bearer for Germany would be "an unbelievable dream," before adding, "That in itself is something I would be really happy about." The 26-year-old went on to highlight the importance of the Olympics to him.

"It is a huge topic for me too. There is no greater honor," he said, "I always have said that the Olympics are the greatest thing that can happen in a sports career." Zverev won an Olympic Gold medal at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, defeating Karen Khachanov in the final 6-3, 6-1.

This comes shortly after tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou claimed that tennis players do not consider the Olympic Games to be as important as Grand Slams. "There is no real connection between tennis and the Olympic Games. A lot of tennis players don’t feel that it’s such an important event for tennis.

"Initially, tennis was at the Olympics, then it got out, and finally, tennis was reintroduced. As a consequence, there is no history between tennis and the Olympic Games. They feel that a Grand Slam is 100 times more important for a tennis player than the Olympic Games," he said.