“If everyone is healthy, Jannik is still ahead”: best player in the world? Zverev says maybe, but not while Sinner is out
Alexander Zverev was handed the title of best player in the world by Ben Shelton during the trophy ceremony. He gave it back. “If everyone is healthy, I think Jannik is still ahead. It’s as simple as that.”
Alexander Zverev and Jimmy Connors | © ergen Hasenkopf/Psnewz
Alexander Zverev beat Ben Shelton 6-3, 7-6 (2), 5-7, 6-2 on Sunday night for his second Grand Slam title of the season, and then declined to be called the best player in the world without an asterisk attached.
Asked “Putting modesty to one side and the rankings to one side, do you think you’re the best tennis player in the world right now?”, he answered : “I don’t know how to answer that. You have to take everything into consideration,” he said. “With Jannik Sinner being injured and Carlos Alcaraz coming back from injury after four months, right now this moment, probably yes. Both of them healthy and both of them at the top of their game, maybe not.”
He went further than the hedge. “Four, five months ago when both of them were healthy, I wasn’t. I was losing to Jannik all the time. So if everyone is healthy, I think Jannik is still ahead. It’s as simple as that.”
The modesty Zverev showed on Sunday night was not modesty. He has not beaten Jannik Sinner in three years, since the fourth round of the US Open in September 2023, and Sinner has won the 10 meetings since. He has not beaten Carlos Alcaraz since a round-robin match at the ATP Finals in November 2024, and before that not since the Australian Open quarterfinals of the same year.
Above all he has never beaten either of them for a trophy. The two have taken all six finals they have played against him, Sinner at the Australian Open in 2025, at Vienna in 2025, at Madrid in April and at Wimbledon in July, Alcaraz at Madrid in 2022 and in the Roland-Garros final of 2024. That is the record behind “if everyone is healthy, I think Jannik is still ahead. It’s as simple as that.”
The numbers say Alcaraz and Sinner
What 2026 changed is the rest of the sentence. Alcaraz missed four months and Roland-Garros and Wimbledon with it, Sinner is injured now, and into that gap Zverev put two Grand Slam titles, 53 wins, a 25-2 record at the majors and the lead in the Race to Turin. The two defeats are the point rather than the exception: Alcaraz beat him over five sets in the Australian Open semifinals, Sinner beat him in the Wimbledon final, and nobody else took a single match off him at that level all year. Zverev has beaten the two of them 10 times in 28 attempts and never when a title was on the line, which is the line the 2027 season will be drawn along.
The record he was talking around is the best of any man this season. Zverev leads the ATP Tour with 53 wins and 25 at Grand Slam level, having gone 25-2 at the majors with both defeats to the two players he named: Alcaraz at the Australian Open and Sinner in the Wimbledon final.
He reached the semifinals of all four Grand Slam tournaments in a season for the first time in his career, the ninth man to do it in the Open era, and the finals of three of them in a row. The title takes him 700 points clear of Sinner at the top of the Race to Turin, having passed him only on Friday.
I don’t think I’m a God-given talent like some other guys are.
The injuries he cited shaped the year as much as his own form did. Alcaraz missed Roland-Garros and Wimbledon, the two tournaments Zverev and Sinner then won, and returned here as defending champion before losing to Shelton in the quarterfinals. But Sinner was sidelined at the US Open.
Zverev was also asked about Shelton’s description of him as the hardest worker on tour, and answered it with the same refusal to claim anything he had not earned. “I think I’m up there, for sure, because I’ve said it before, I don’t think I’m the most talented in any way. I don’t think I’m a God-given talent like some other guys are. I think most of my tennis is through hard work, through a lot of hours spent on the court, and through a lot of hours spent in the gym and on the track. That’s how I play tennis.”
