Mark Philippoussis Explains Alexander Zverev's Poor Grand Slam Form - UBITENNIS

Mark Philippoussis Explains Alexander Zverev’s Poor Grand Slam Form

Mark Philippoussis has said that Alexander Zverev needs to shorten his baseline rallies if he wants to win a grand slam in 2019.

By Tony Fairbairn
2 Min Read

Former grand slam finalist Mark Philippoussis has put Alexander Zverev’s poor grand slam form down to not being able to shorten his baseline points. 

The Australian has pointed out that the young and upcoming German needs to preserve his energy and one way of achieving this is by shortening the baseline rallies, “The only guy who has stepped up is Zverev,” Philippoussis told the Metro.

But he hasn’t done it in Grand Slams yet. He’s far from done it at Grand Slams. His game is staying back on the baseline and that’s no problem but when you’ve got seven best-of-five set matches to win you need to, you know, kind of get through that first week without working as hard.

In my opinion, he just stays three or four feet too far back behind that baseline and he’s just doing a lot of work. That’s fine in the best-of-three sets, the tournaments that he’s winning three or four of this year but in Grand Slams it’s just a different story.”

The Australian makes a valid point as Zverev will need to use this method to make the transition from winning the ATP Finals to winning a grand slam.

At 21 years of age Zverev has won three masters 1000 event as well as the ATP Finals but will need to shorten up the points if he wants to win a grand slam in 2019.

The German’s next tournament is the Hopman Cup, where he teams up with Angelique Kerber to try and go one step further than they did in last year’s tournament.

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