For the last few years, men’s tennis has been dominated by the likes of Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, and Murray. However, there is a long list of young tennis players that will help end their reign and that list begins with Alexander Zverev Jr., who just became a top ten player in the ATP rankings last weekend after defeating Djokovic in the finals of the ATP Masters 1000 in Rome. At the age of 20, the sky’s the limit for his professional career as he has the potential to dominate the sport in a similar fashion as his idol, Roger Federer, had over the course of his career.
Alexander Zverev’s Net Worth as of 2017: $6 Million
How did he get here?
2013 – 2014
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Before turning pro in 2013, Zverev had the fortune of being raised in Germany by parents who were professional tennis players. His father, Alexander Zverev Sr., was a professional tennis player for the Soviet Union and has been his son’s coach since he started playing tennis at the age of five. Zverev Jr. also has a brother who still plays professional tennis. His brother and doubles partner, Mischa, actually made headlines for his Australian Open run earlier this year where he upset Andy Murray before eventually losing to Roger Federer in the quarterfinals.
In 2013, Zverev Jr. officially became the number one junior tennis player in the world. As a junior tennis player, he won the 2014 Boys’ Australian Open and finished with a win/loss record of 96-35 before turning pro in June of 2014.
2014 – 2015
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After his stint in juniors tennis, Zverev joined the ATP Challenger Tour, which consists of the players who are not good enough to compete effectively with players in the ATP World Tour. However, the Challenger Tour is still considered the second highest level of competition in all of professional tennis.
In his first couple of months on the Challenger Tour, Zverev struggled before finally winning his first ATP Challenger Tour title at the Sparkassen Open in 2014, where he defeated Paul-Henri Mathieu in the final.
Zverev continued to play well after his first professional title and was rewarded for his efforts after winning an ATP Challenger Tour title in Heilbronn. After his semifinal victory over Jan-Lennard Struff, Zverev officially joined the ATP top 100 and reached the rank of 85 after winning that tournament. As a result, Zverev was named ATP Star of Tomorrow for being the youngest player to finish the season in the top 100.
2016
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After starting his 2016 campaign by losing in the second round of the Australian Open to Andy Murray in straight sets, Zverev caught fire at a tournament in Indian Wells where he defeated seeded players like Dimitrov and Simon and held a match point in the fourth round of that tournament against legendary player Rafael Nadal before eventually losing that match.
That near-victory over Nadal alerted the world about his extreme talent in the sport and also propelled him into a sponsorship deal with a luxury Swiss watch brand called Richard Mille and even became one of its grand ambassadors alongside Rafael Nadal. Although the details of this sponsorship agreement are confidential, one can infer that it will be quite a lucrative contract for Zverev considering the fact that Nadal had a watch with them that sold out at a price of $775,000 per watch.
Zverev continued his successful 2016 campaign with victories over top ten players such as Roger Federer at Halle in Germany along with Tomas Berdych and Stan Wawrinka in St. Petersburg.
Zverev concluded the season by defeating top 25 ranked American John Isner and top 10 ranked Croatian Marin Cilic which earned him enough points to become the youngest player ranked in the ATP top 20 since Novak Djokovic in 2006.
2017
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Zverev began his tenure in the top 20 by going to the third round of the Australian Open where he lost to eventual runner-up Rafael Nadal in a five-set thriller. Zverev also enjoyed his first career victory representing Germany in the Davis Cup after defeating Arthur de Greef.
Zverev managed to defeat top 10 player Stan Wawrinka again before starting the clay court season where he won the BMW Open in Germany.
Last week, Zverev conducted his most impressive tournament run to date which culminated in an Italian Open trophy. In this tournament, he defeated top 10 players, including Milos Raonic in the quarterfinals and number-two seeded Novak Djokovic in the finals.
Amazingly, Zverev has accomplished all of this by the age 20 and has made approximately $3.6 million in prize money thus far. Zverev could potentially be the number one player in the world in a few years if he continues this ridiculous pace. Until then, expect him to make some serious noise in this year’s French Open, where he is poised to make a deep run.
