SEPT 25 - 27, 2026 | LONDON
Nobody has made more appearances or won more matches on the Laver Cup stage than Alexander Zverev, who made his tournament debut in Prague in 2017 and is once again leading the charge here at The O2 in London in 2026.
The 6’6″ German was just 20 that first year. Now, he’s 29, a much different player in many ways. For starters, the athlete who many observers thought might go down as the biggest talent never to win a major singles title has finally circumvented the Grand Slam barrier, having won Roland Garros and, most recently, the US Open, in a span of three months.
His victory in Paris, he said, was especially freeing. Not just because it was his first, but because it was there on the terre battue in 2022 that he shredded his right ankle, tearing all three lateral ligaments. He was rolled off the court in a wheelchair, unsure if he’d ever play again.
“At some point, the self-belief wasn’t quite there anymore. I was struggling to believe that I was ever going to win one.” — Team Europe’s Alexander Zverev
“The pressure for me was in Paris. I felt a lot of pressure, a lot of stress,” Zverev told LaverCup.com. “In New York, I was able to enjoy it more. I was loving being on center court, loving being out there on the big stage in the final, whereas in Paris, I didn’t enjoy it so much. I just wanted to get the job done because I’d never won one. It was always a question mark if I was ever going to win one. I feel like I freed myself a little bit in Paris. New York was even better. But I still want to keep my form. I still want to keep going, to appreciate the form that I’m in, because I still have big goals ahead of me. I still have things that I really want to achieve.”
Zverev admitted that, after coming up short in his first three Slam finals (2020 US Open, 2024 Roland Garros, 2025 Australian Open), his confidence plummeted.
“At some point, the self-belief wasn’t quite there anymore,” he said. “I was struggling to believe that I was ever going to win one. Especially last year, after losing to Jannik [Sinner] in the final in Australia. That was difficult. But in sports, things can change very quickly — for the negative, but also for the positive. And for me, they obviously have changed, and I’m enjoying the stage right now.”
This week at The O2 in London, Zverev has emerged as the de facto team leader. Even his Team Europe cohort, seven-time major singles titlist Carlos Alcaraz, has dubbed Zverev the best player in the world at the moment.
“I don’t know if I’m the team leader,” said Zverev. “I think I’m the oldest guy and the one that has played this event the most, but I think we have unbelievable champions on the team, and they all know what it takes to win. If anybody has any questions, I am more than happy to answer them, but I’m also not going to step on anyone’s toes. I’m very happy to be in a position that I am on Team Europe. We all want to compete and bring the Laver Cup back to Europe. That’s our main goal.”
Zverev may have stumbled on something at Flushing Meadows, a new strategy to avoid the big stage pressure. Though he’d just closed out a 6-3, 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-2 triumph over American Ben Shelton in the US Open title tilt, he didn’t celebrate after match point. Why? He’d forgotten the score.
“I did, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “I forgot the score. I knew I was a break up, but I thought it was 4-1. I thought, ‘I’m going to hold serve, and then I’ll probably get a little bit nervous’, but suddenly the match was over. I was very happy about it. I was just in that zone, just playing tennis, just focusing on every single shot. That definitely helped me, just staying in the moment and not thinking about the big picture. In the end, it was a funny and weird moment. In a way, it helped me.”
