MONTREAL \u2014 Alexander Zverev has faced Jannik Sinner five times in the semifinals or finals of tournaments this season, losing on each occasion.<\/p>\n
Despite that, the German star wishes the world No. 1 hadn\u2019t withdrawn from the National Bank Open.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you want to be competing against the best, especially before the U.S. Open,\u201d Zverev said at a news conference Sunday at IGA Stadium. \u201cI understand it, though. I mean, we had a thought also of maybe skipping Montreal this year, but then we decided to play it.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, it\u2019s not a positive that I keep losing to the same guy, or I have lost to the same guy multiple times, but I think it definitely shows that we were probably the two most stable players on tour this year, and that\u2019s a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zverev, ranked No. 2 in the world and the top seed in Montreal, notably lost to Sinner in the Madrid final and most recently at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old said he quickly moved past the defeat to Sinner at the grass-court Grand Slam, although he would have liked to extend the match by forcing a deciding set.<\/p>\n
Zverev also realized after his French Open triumph in June that winning his first Grand Slam title did not really change his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a satisfaction, for sure. I mean, I\u2019ve waited for that Grand Slam title a very long time, in a way, and, of course, I\u2019m very happy that it came,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the work continues since we have three Masters tournaments here in North America, and that\u2019s what the focus is on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zverev said it was important for him to play a lot of matches to feel comfortable on court. As a result, he took only one week off after Wimbledon before returning to training.<\/p>\n
He added, however, that every player has their own approach, and he understands why Sinner and veteran Novak Djokovic decided to skip the Montreal tournament.<\/p>\n
Zverev also did not appear particularly interested in discussing ways to encourage all players to participate in Masters 1000 events.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, if everything goes back to the old (way) and we would play one-week Masters events, yeah, we can talk about it,\u201d he said. \u201dBut if you\u2019re forcing us to be away for two and a half, three weeks during Grand Slams and the same then goes for Masters events, you can\u2019t force us to play. Sorry, that\u2019s nonsense.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, if you play all nine Masters, you get a bonus at the end of the year. So there is that to it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think Novak will care if he gets a bigger bonus?\u201d he added. \u201cI think the guy has \u2014 I mean, if I would have to guess, the guy is north of 400 million in his bank account, and so I\u2019m not sure he would care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zverev is therefore not a big fan of 12-day Masters events, a format the National Bank Open adopted last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to play more 500 events, 250 events when the Masters were shorter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Still, Zverev hopes the Montreal tournament, which he won in 2017, will serve as a springboard for his hard-court season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think maybe I\u2019ll play my best tennis here,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the result of me playing here, I think I\u2019ll play better in Cincinnati and then hopefully my best tennis in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Alexis B\u00e9langer-Champagne, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 Alexander Zverev has faced Jannik Sinner five times in the semifinals or finals of tournaments this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-844058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}