DUBAI // With his country having just celebrated its first major success since Steffi Graf’s 1999 French Open triumph on the women’s side, Philipp Kohlschreiber is confident Alexander Zverev can end Germany’s longer wait for a men’s champion, especially since he will be peaking at a time when most of the members of the “Big Four” club will have retired.
Angelique Kerber stunned Serena Williams in the Australian Open final last month to become the first German grand slam champion since Graf clinched her 22nd major, but the nation has been starved of success on the men’s side since Boris Becker’s triumph at the 1996 Australian Open.
Michael Stich made it to the final of the French Open that same year, but Rainer Schuttler is the only German to reach the men’s final at a major since and he was drubbed in straight sets by Andre Agassi in the 2003 Australian Open final.
The Big Four – Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray – have dominated men’s tennis over the past dozen years, winning 43 of the 49 majors since the start of 2004. They are still a force, but Federer is 34 and Nadal a battered 29, while Djokovic and Murray will both be celebrating their 29th birthday in May.
Giving their age, Kohlschreiber says world No 56 Zverev, who is still 18 and the youngest player in the ATP top 100, will have the great advantage of not running into the Big Four every time, at every tournament in the near future.
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"I think Zverev comes at a great time in men's tennis," said Kohlschreiber, the eighth seed at this week's Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. "The top four guys are not getting any younger.
“Novak, Roger and maybe Murray they are still dominating the tennis, but in a few years from now, there will be nobody that strong, at least not as strong as these guys. At this moment, I don’t see anyone.
“So everybody else, younger than 24, will have the good fortune of not having such really strong players at No 1 to No 4. Rafa is struggling a little bit now, but he was a huge success on clay.
“Every time you faced him, you knew the chances of your going out of the tournament were really high. So the coming years will be a time of transition in tennis and the players will have the chance to achieve maybe better results because you are not facing these four, let’s say, superheroes all the time.”
Zverev, of course, is one of the most talked about emerging talents in tennis and Kohlschreiber is clearly impressed with the teenager’s game and attitude.
“Zverev is a very young talented guy, he loves tennis and he is a great character,” he said.
“We practise quite a lot together. You know at this age, he is 18, he is hitting with great force already.
“So I think he has a very good future ahead of him.
“I hope he stays healthy with the same attitude on the court and I think then he will have a great future.”
Talking about his own form, Kohlschreiber, 30, is happy with the way he has turned things around after a difficult start to the year, when he lost to world No 10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round of Auckland and No 7 Kei Nishikori in the opening round of the Australian Open.
Returning to Europe, the world No 29 reached the last eight in Sofia and then reached the semi-final at Rotterdam, where he lost to Gael Monfils. With the confidence of those results behind him, Kohlschreiber is looking forward to another good run in Dubai, where he reached the last four on his last appearance in 2014.
“I think I had very tough opponents, facing two top 10 guys at the start of the season,” he said. “But I continued working hard and I had a little bit more luck with the draw, and yeah, with the victories in Sofia and Rotterdam, I build up my confidence, played better and, of course, that’s a very important factor in the tennis game.”
Kohlschreiber will open his Dubai campaign against Turkish wild card Marsel Ilhan, a world No 112, but insists he cannot afford to relax.
“I think to play a wild card in this strong tournament, it’s good,” he said. “On the other side, it can be a bit tricky and I have to make sure I do not take it too easy. I have to play good tennis to beat him and that’s my goal.”
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