Follow us on Google Discover When it comes to Alexander Zverev, it’s often the case that it never rains but it pours for the German performer.
Zverev was sent packing from the Shanghai Masters by Arthur Rinderknech on Monday, and that came a couple of days after he made some bizarre – and perhaps unjust – comments.
Rinderknech did praise Zverev after beating him in Shanghai, but it’s yet another defeat to a lower-ranked player in a big event for the German.
Over the weekend, Zverev took aim at Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, suggesting that tournament directors are making courts slower for their benefit to try and help them both reach finals of events.
Sinner replied immediately to Zverev regarding his claims, and now other pundits in the world of tennis are starting to make their own judgments on his opinions.
Photo by Hu Chengwei/Getty ImagesJohn Isner weighs in on Alexander Zverev’s argument
Isner was a big serving player so naturally preferred the courts to be slower when he was enjoying his professional career.
Now part of the Nothing Major podcast, Isner has already suggested why he thinks Novak Djokovic has played in Shanghai this year and now he’s weighed into Zverev’s claims.
He said on the latest podcast: “I tend to disagree with the claim that courts are getting slower across the board. It just seems to me that some get faster and maybe some are slower.
“Shanghai clearly is much slower this year. That used to be the fastest Masters 1000 event all year. They would rate the court speed.
“I also think there is a bit of a misconception that slowing down the courts is going to allow the best players to win.
“I think that big servers, like myself, prefer slow courts. You look at Mpetshi Perricard, he’s still alive in Shanghai. It gives us more time to go after shots and big servers can hold on any surface. So if the thought is to get the serve bots out of the field, making the courts slow is not what you want to do, you want to make it faster.
“But I don’t think this is something that is uniform across the board. Cincinnati was very fast, Paris seems to fluctuate a little bit, but certainly Shanghai this year. I was surprised to see how slow it has been because that tournament used to be super fast, especially the centre court and the grandstand court.
“I actually think Sinner is best on fast courts. I think, just with his counter-punching ability. He can do everything, he can attack and counter punch. But because these guys play defence so well, I actually think the fast court helps them a bit.
“I don’t think tournament directors are sitting around saying how can we ensure that we get Alcaraz vs Sinner in the final? I think maybe fans back at home like seeing these brutal rallies, which slow courts can create, but for Sinner and Alcaraz, it does not matter what they are playing on. They are both pretty good!”
Zverev should spend more time on his own form
It’s hard to suggest that these comments from Zverev sound anything other than very bitter, given how poor his season has been and how good Sinner and Alcaraz have been.
The two best players in world tennis are both far and away the best players, and when it comes to tennis-playing abilities, nobody has laid a glove on them in 2025.
If anything, all Zverev will do with these comments is wind the two players up and place a target on his own back when it comes to playing either of them again.
Given a lack of wins this season on the ATP Tour, Zverev would be better served to focus his anger towards his own game and try to control things that he’s actually got control of, rather than whinging about other stuff.