Young Gun Watch: Alexander Zverev

[El Dude]

This 17-year old just beat Tobias Kamke to make it to the Hamburg semifinals. He won the junior Australian Open this year, although didn't play in either Roland Garros or Wimbledon.

Oh yeah, he won a challenger tournament in June, beating Kamke, Joao Souza, and Andrey Golubev before beating Paul-Henri Mathieu in the final.

Finally, he's really just 17 - born in April of 1997. Yes, 1997.

Looks like a player to watch.

 

[El Dude]

Oh yeah, he's #160 in the live rankings. If he wins his next match he'll be in the 130s, if he wins the tournament he'll be around #80. Of course to do that he'll have to beat David Ferrer (gulp) in the semifinal, and then one of L Mayer, Kohlschreiber, or Rosol.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

This is part 1. Couple more exist.

[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ6mQjy02QQ[/video]

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

zverev aka "the lightning kid" (still copyright me 2014, gimme the freaking image rights money NOW). tearing up the rank charts will make fellow young gunz like coric n garin think they are not doing enough and will be wanting to step it up a few notches.

 

[El Dude]

zverev aka "the lightning kid" (still copyright me 2014, gimme the freaking image rights money NOW). tearing up the rank charts will make fellow young gunz like coric n garin think they are not doing enough and will be wanting to step it up a few notches.

I certainly hope so although Coric and Garin (like Zverev) are still quite young, and it has been a long time since we've seen a 17-18 year old in the top 100, but if they're going to be elites you really want to see them enter the top 100 when they're still teenagers. Off the top of my head, the usual elite trajectory is something like top 100 as a teenager, top 20 by age 21, top 10 and Slam winner shortly thereafter.

I have a good feeling about Zverev and, to a lesser degree, Coric and Garin and maybe Gianluigi Quinzi. And of course Kyrgios - who is about a year to year and a half older than those guys. I think they may represent the next dominant group. I feel that Vesely and Thiem are more in the Raonic-Dimitrov group and will be successful, but not elite. But the next truly elite players maybe have to come from teenagers Kyrgios, Zverev, Coric, and Garin.

 

[isabelle]

He looks promising, hope he'll make some waves on US soil

 

[Kieran]

Great to see the youngsters making noise. I think The Dude might have been prescient in his view that the Victory virus will skip a generation of thugs and alight on these newbies. Only Grigor of a certain vintage looks promising to me, but he's got to develop a more ruthless side. These younger players are growing with the example of Fedal - but not under their thumbs.

17. He was born after Pete won Oz in 1997. Crazy!

 

[TennisFanatic7]

1997, makes me feel really old

However, great performances from him in Hamburg. I don't see him beating Ferrer but it's been a terrific week from him anyway. I just hope he backs it up and doesn't fade into obscurity for 6 months.

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

I hope he goes down the nadal route of largely bypassing any more junior events and stay on the challenger circuit with the chance to qualify for main atptour events / or get a wildcard..