By Martyn Herman
LONDON, July 11 (Reuters) – Alexander Zverev will hope the old adage about London buses — you wait an age for one and then two come along at once — holds true for his tennis career on Sunday as he attempts to upset the odds and dethrone Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon final.
It will be a daunting challenge for the newly-crowned French Open champion though as his reward for reaching his first Wimbledon final is a clash with the Italian who has beaten him nine times in a row including winning the last 14 sets.
On the positive side though for Zverev — the first German to reach the men’s final at Wimbledon since Boris Becker in 1995 — is that he suddenly seems to be walking taller, which is saying something for a man standing at 6 feet 6 inches.
Zverev seized his chance at Roland Garros after a wrist injury ruled out 2025 champion Carlos Alcaraz and Sinner suffered a meltdown in a Parisian furnace in the second round.
The world number three went on to win a nervy final against Italian Flavio Cobolli, thus ending the Alcaraz-Sinner duopoly which had seen them share out the previous nine Grand Slam titles.
Wimbledon has never been a happy hunting ground for Zverev, despite his lethal serve and signature backhand, but the good vibes from Paris have followed him across the Channel and he appears finally to have cracked the grasscourt code.
His second-week wins over dangerous Czech Jiri Lehecka, big-serving American Taylor Fritz and then British wildcard Arthur Fery in the semi-final, smack of a player oozing confidence.
“Once you win a major you know how to do it and you feel like you can do it again. You have this feeling inside of you,” Zverev told reporters as he looked ahead to the final.
TURNED FOREHAND INTO A WEAPON
Noticeable during the fortnight is the way Zverev has turned his forehand into a weapon when once it was a chink in his armour. Against Fery he struck 22 winners with it, compared to eight on his money-maker backhand.
“I’ve been trying to play a more aggressive game style. I’ve been trying to take on the game a bit more. For sure my forehand is a big part of it,” Zverev said.
Should Zverev prevail on Sunday, he will become the seventh man to complete the French Open-Wimbledon double in the same year.
Trouble is, however impressive as he has looked, the way Sinner dispatched seven-time Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic in straight sets on Friday to reach his seventh Grand Slam final was an awesome statement of intent after arriving in London with doubts.
Sinner’s supposed susceptibility to heat and London’s third heatwave of the summer led some to question whether the ginger-haired player from German-speaking south Tyrol would be vulnerable as he set out to defend the title.
Since suffering a scare in the first round against Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic, when he required five sets to avoid a first-round exit, he has moved smoothly through the gears.
By the time he came up against Djokovic, Sinner’s trademark power and precision were back with a vengeance while his serving was off the charts as he banged down 16 aces and lost only six points on his first delivery.
Sinner last lost to Zverev at the U.S. Open in 2023 and their previous meeting in a Grand Slam final ended in a straight sets demolition. That defeat at the 2025 Australian Open rocked Zverev to the core.
While, on paper, Sinner has Zverev’s number, the world number one knows Sunday’s match is played on grass and he knows Zverev will be fuelled with a new-found belief.
“Because he tried for so long, and then when you finally achieve it, it’s amazing and then gives you this confidence boost,” Sinner said of Zverev’s French Open win.
“We see it again here. We saw how aggressive he’s playing, serving very big. He is a tough player to play against.”
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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