Alexander Zverev: ‘New superstar’ Stefanos Tsitsipas’ good clay season has helped me

French Open
Alexander Zverev

Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas have had a testy relationship, but the former believes the Greek’s good clay-court season has done him wonders.

German Zverev reached the quarter-final of the French Open for the first time with a four-set win over Fabio Fognini on Monday.

The fifth seed, though, will be the first to admit that he has not exactly set the world alight during the red-dirt campaign as he suffered a string of early exits before getting his act together to win the Geneva Open.

Tsitsipas, by contrast, beat the likes of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Zverev during excellent runs in Madrid and Rome.

However, the Greek exited Roland Garros in the fourth round as he was downed by Stan Wawrinka in five tight sets while Zverev is still alive with Novak Djokovic up next.

“The best thing that could have happened for me is how good Tsitsipas’ clay-court season was… I actually do believe that. That was the best thing that could have happened to me, to be honest,” Zverev said.

“I’m happy for him. You know he played a great match yesterday (Sunday), unfortunately not going his way. But both of them Stan and him played unbelievably well. So he can be proud of something.

“But, as I said, he was kind of the new superstar all of a sudden. And for me, it was actually quite a nice thing that not all of the attention of the NextGen is only going towards my way.”

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