Alexander Zverev: 13 titles at the age of 23 - strong, but by far not the strongest

Alexander Zverev caused a sensation on the ATP tour at a young age, most recently with two consecutive tournament victories in Cologne. But other players were much more successful even earlier.

Wer gewinnt? Tippt jetzt!

18+ | Interwetten Gaming Ltd. MGA/B2C/110/2004 interwetten.com

© Getty Images

Günter Bresnik, long-time coach of Dominic Thiem , rated Alexander Zverev's opportunities at the top as pretty good at a performance by his former protégé at the Munich tennis tournament. Zverev, said Bresnik at the time, already had the two most important strokes in sport in his portfolio. As there are: the serve and the return. In fact, the now 23-year-old German dominates almost all opponents with his service on good days. As in Cologne, they in turn have almost no free points to expect when they serve. Because Alexander Zverev returns so strongly.

These qualities have led the German number one to 13 titles on the ATP tour. At the exact age of 23.51 years. Where does Zverev place this in a historical comparison? Astonishingly far behind, as a resourceful statistician has found.

Connors record holder with 109 titles

Björn Borg, for example, had already won 53 tour titles at that point in his life, Jimmy Connors at least 43. However, the clear structure of the tour in 250/500/1000 events did not exist when Borg was active. Which distorts the comparison a little. The same goes for Connors. It is perhaps interesting how the careers of the two opponents have developed after the early successes: Borg put his racket aside at the age of 26 and finally came up with 60 tournament victories. Connors, on the other hand, played well into his 30s and ended up with 109 titles on his balance sheet. Still the record.

Of the current stars, Rafael Nadal started the fastest. At the current age of Alexander Zverev, the Spaniard has already won 36 tournaments.

Roger Federer also got off to a more successful start than the German. The maestro had won 23 titles by the deadline. Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray have taken it a little easier: the Serb with 18 wins, Murray with 16.

Here is the all-time list of titles on the ATP tour up to the age of 23.51 years