With Alexander Zverev, third in the world rankings, German tennis currently has a player who is clearly one of the world’s best – but behind him the air becomes very thin very quickly. Now the Hamburg native has commented on the youth crisis at the DTB.
“The system is a bit of a hindrance to professional sport in Germany,” said the 28-year-old, commenting on the topic at the start of the ATP tournament in Munich. “It’s not just like this in tennis, in every other sport too,” said Zverev, referring to the poor German performance at the Summer Olympics in Paris in 2024. “That suggests that something in the sporting area is not working in Germany.”
Zverev, who starts in Munich as defending champion, is the only German in the field who has a real chance of winning. In addition to the top star, there are only two other German top 100 players in the main field: Daniel Altmaier and Yannick Hanfmann. Talent Justin Engel also starts with a wildcard, Marco Topo and Diego Dedura also made it into the first round through qualification.
The 2021 Olympic champion finds it “a shame” that there are currently only four Germans in the top 100 and only Zverev in the top 50. “Germany has always been a very rich country when it comes to players. We have always had a lot of top 50 and top 100 players. Unfortunately, we no longer have that,” Zverev sums up the misery.
Zverev emphasizes upward trend
The situation for women is hardly better: the inexperienced German women’s tennis team was even relegated to the international third division in the Billie Jean King Cup last weekend.
In 2026, Zverev, on the other hand, will be showing off his outstanding qualities as if on an assembly line: at the Australian Open and the Masters tournaments in Indian Wells, Miami and Monte-Carlo, he made it to the semi-finals, where he most recently lost out three times against Jannik Sinner.
A circumstance that doesn’t discourage Zverev: “I’m not the only one who lost to him,” Zverev remarked about the new number one in the tennis world. “Last year I felt like I lost to everyone. It’s more pleasant that way.”
In Munich, Zverev starts his mission to defend his title against the Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic on Tuesday (sport.de follows the game in the LIVE ticker).
