20-year-old Alexander Zverev has had a stellar 2017 campaign, where he has claimed four career titles on the ATP World Tour with three of them coming this year. He won the biggest title in his career by winning his maiden Masters 1000 title at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia against 12-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic. Unfortunately for the German, he was unable to carry that form into the French Open as he lost to Fernando Verdasco in a four-set tussle in the first round.
Zverev recently had a tough Sunday at the Gerry Weber Open in Halle, when he lost his second successive final in Halle after losing to Roger Federer in the singles final and he lost the doubles final with his brother Mischa. Nevertheless, the 20-year-old sporadically trains with the 18-time Grand Slam champion, and he admires Federer for his behaviour off-court.
"He is always fantastic and respectful with everyone. He always tries to help us, I listen to his suggestions. He helped me at the beginning of my career and I think it's like this for all the younger players." The world number 12 also praised the Australian Open champion's current high-level of play. "I think Roger is playing really, really well. I think going into Wimbledon he's going to be probably the favourite to win the whole thing. So credit to him, he played an unbelievable match. Of course, I could have played better but he didn't really let me play my best tennis. His tennis is insane. We will never see something like this again.
"He messed with the ball a lot. He played very aggressively... I think he deserved to win. Zverev analysed his straight sets loss to Federer on Sunday. I think it was a very good week for me again making the finals here. Of course, I'm upset with the loss, but going into Wimbledon I feel very confident I can make a deep run there."
The 20-year-old advanced to the third round at Wimbledon last year as the 24th seed when he lost to former finalist Tomas Berdych
on Centre Court on Middle Sunday due to rain delays. Nevertheless, despite being ranked at 12 in the world this time around, he will be the 10th seed due to his past performances on grass over the year.