Ferrero says Zverev’s No. 1 is “well-deserved”, but admits they never shared an idea of professionalism

Alexander Zverev has been confirmed as the new world No. 1, with Jannik Sinner’s season over because of a knee injury. Juan Carlos Ferrero, who briefly coached him, has given his verdict.

Ferrero: “I think it’s well-deserved”

Ferrero, who coached Zverev for a few months in 2017, told Eurosport last week: “I think it’s well-deserved. He’s a player who I believe has been working towards this for a long time. Perhaps his level and development had stagnated a bit over the last three or four years. But in the last year and a half, I think he’s realised this and has really been trying to improve.”

Ferrero was also clear about the circumstances. “It just so happens that neither Carlos nor Jannik have been there,” he said. “He’s taken advantage of the opportunity. But I think that now, having seized that opportunity, he’s going to be mentally stronger to try and compete on equal terms with them.”

That is a balanced assessment: credit for the work, and an acknowledgement that Carlos Alcaraz and Sinner have been absent. It is also a prediction. Ferrero believes the ranking will change how Zverev sees himself.

A frank look back

The more striking part of the interview concerns the period when the two worked together. “With Zverev, let’s just say we didn’t share the same understanding of the professionalism involved in being a tennis player,” Ferrero said. “Our cultures are very different. He’s Russian-German, I’m Spanish. We thought differently and, in the end, we each decided to go our separate ways.”

It is a candid line, and elsewhere in the interview Ferrero is warm about his former pupil. He contrasted that short spell with his seven years alongside Alcaraz, whom he began working with at 15, and described his goal as helping a young man “improve day by day” rather than making him a copy of himself.

How it sits with the other voices

Ferrero’s view fits a broader pattern. Zverev’s year-end No. 1 has divided opinion, and we have followed the argument closely. Boris Becker defended it, saying nothing is given to a player for free, as we reported on 16 October. Zverev himself said he would be “an idiot” to claim he had matched Sinner, while Patrick Mouratoglou gave his own verdict on the No. 1 ranking, as we covered on 30 October.

Ferrero sits between those positions. He does not claim Zverev has overtaken the two younger men on level terms, but he does not accept that the ranking is hollow either. His point is about what comes after: the chance to compete as an equal once Alcaraz and Sinner are back.

What to watch

The Paris Masters is under way, the first event at which Zverev carries the No. 1 tag in the way Ferrero describes. How Zverev handles the expectation that comes with the ranking will tell us whether Ferrero’s mental-strength argument holds.