‘Staying healthy is a real skill’: Mouratoglou explains why Zverev deserves to be No. 1
Patrick Mouratoglou believes Alexander Zverev fully deserves his No. 1 ranking, even if Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are better players. Staying healthy, he argues, is “a real skill” that demands sacrifice, and Zverev’s two Grand Slam titles in 2026 marked a mental breakthrough.
Alexander Zverev, Roland-Garros 2026 | © Julien Nouet, Tennis Majors
Alexander Zverev may not be the best player in the world, but his ranking is fully deserved. That is Patrick Mouratoglou’s view, set out in a video on his social media channels in which he argued that staying healthy is a skill in itself, and part of a player’s value.
“Zverev might not be the best player, but he’s the number one in the world, and he fully deserves it,” Mouratoglou said. “The first way I read the situation is that your ranking is your value. If others are injured, bad luck for them.”
Zverev is assured of finishing the year as No. 1 following Sinner’s withdrawal from the remainder of the season. He leads the ATP Tour with 62 match wins this season. He won Roland-Garros, becoming the first German man to take the title in the Open Era, and then won the US Open. Jannik Sinner is out for the rest of the 2026 season, and Carlos Alcaraz missed both of those titles.
Mouratoglou said a player’s results cannot be separated from his body management.
“I think a player is not only performing on court, it’s also being healthy, it’s also managing your body, so it’s part of it,” he said. “If someone is never injured and others are often injured, the one that is not injured will probably end up having a higher ranking.”
He cited Jack Draper. “Jack Draper is an amazing player, but he cannot maintain this ranking because he’s too injured, so that’s part of his history, his career, and in a way, his value.”
He applied the same reasoning to Rafael Nadal. “There are the same discussions about Rafa. ‘Oh, if Rafa would not have been injured, he would have won X Grand Slams.’ Yeah, but there is no if. He was injured,” Mouratoglou said. “There are reasons why he was, and there are reasons why others were not injured, like Novak was barely injured all his career.”
The price of staying fit
“Staying healthy when you’re a professional athlete is a real skill, and it requires a lot of work, a lot of professionalism, a lot of sacrifice,” he said. “It requires to be very careful with what you eat, to be extremely disciplined with all the physio work, every single day. There is a price to pay for everything.”
He made an exception for Sinner. “It’s sad for Jannik because I think he’s part of those guys. I think he’s extremely serious, extremely disciplined, but this year it happened.” Mouratoglou added that Sinner would not finish this season at No. 1 but would probably do so many times in future.
Asked whether he thinks Sinner and Alcaraz are better than Zverev, he did not hesitate. “Yes, but they’re not number one. He’s number one.”
Zverev’s mental breakthrough
Mouratoglou said Zverev’s two Grand Slam titles answered the old doubts about his nerve. At both events, Sinner and Alcaraz were out of the draw and Zverev became the favorite. Mouratoglou called that “maybe a once in a lifetime occasion.”
“In the past, he had so many occasions to win Grand Slams, and he just didn’t make it. So at some point people started to think, ‘Oh, well, maybe mentally he’s not able to,’” he said. “Technically, there were 128 guys who could win it, and he did, twice. He didn’t play well, but he won the tournament, and that’s a huge quality. So I think he showed really a lot of mental strength this year, which is something that he was not able to show in the past.”
