London: The latest champion at the year-ending Nitto ATP Finals has promised he isn’t stopping short of anything but being the best in the world in the near future.
German 21-year-old Alexander Zverev defeated the two best players in as many days to lift a maiden ATP Finals trophy at a packed O2 Arena on Sunday. Zverev got the better of former world No. 1 Roger Federer in Saturday’s semi-final, and then got the better of hot-favourite Novak Djokovic a day later.
“I’ll do everything I can to be on top,” Zverev promised after winning 6-4, 6-3 against Djokovic.
“But the other guys are playing great tennis as well. Obviously, they’re still going to be the guys to beat at the big tournaments. I will do everything I can to get better, to compete with them always. I feel like I’m doing that. But still I have a lot of things to improve. I’m still very young. Hopefully, next year I’ll be able to play better tennis than I did this year, even though it’s been a good year.”
Zverev is being looked at one of the few youngsters alongside Stefanos Tsitsipas and Karen Khachanov who are coming through to possibly undermine the dominance of the current ‘Big Four’ of tennis — Federer, Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray. “Obviously we young guys are coming through. Khachanov winning the Masters in Paris was a big thing,” Zverev said. “I was very happy for him, as well. I wasn’t happy that he beat me, but I was happy for the victory that he had because I’m quite good friends with him. The victory for Tsitsipas in Toronto, I felt like Novak wasn’t playing his best there, but obviously all credit to Tsitsipas. You have to beat someone like Novak because he’s not going to give you the match and he’s done just that.”
For the moment, though, the native of Hamburg was happy to enjoy the moment. “This is the biggest title of my career so far,” he said. “This trophy means a lot, everything, to all the players. I mean, you only have so many chances of winning it. You play against the best players only.
“How I played, how I won it, for me it’s just amazing.”
