Zverev is tipped to finish the year as Sinner’s No. 1 after sitting out the rest of the season. He leads the ATP Tour with 62 wins this season. He won Roland Garros to become the first German to win the title in the Open Era and then went on to win the US Open. Yannick Sinner is out for the remainder of the 2026 season and Carlos Alcaraz missed out on both titles.
Mouratoglou said that a player’s results cannot be separated from the leadership of his body.
“I think a player is not just performing on the court, but being healthy, it’s managing your body, so that’s part of it,” he said. “If someone never gets hurt and the others get hurt often, the one who doesn’t get hurt is likely to have a higher rating.”
He quoted Jack Draper. “Jack Draper is an amazing player but he can’t maintain this rating because he’s been injured too much, so it’s part of his history, part of his career and in a way his value.”
He applied the same reasoning to Rafael Nadal. “There are the same discussions about Rafa. “Ah, if Rafa hadn’t been injured, he would have won X Grand Slams. Yes, but if there isn’t. He was injured,” Muratoglu said. “There’s reasons why he was and there’s reasons why others weren’t hurt, like Novak was barely hurt his entire career.”
The price of staying fit
“Staying healthy when you’re a professional athlete is a real skill, and it takes a lot of work, a lot of professionalism, a lot of sacrifice,” he said. “It requires being very careful about what you eat, being extremely disciplined with all the physiological work, every day. You have to pay for everything.”
He made an exception for Sinner. “It’s sad for Jannik because I think he’s part of those guys. I think he’s too serious, too disciplined, but this year it happened.” Mouratoglou added that Siner will not finish this season at No. 1, but will probably do so many times in the future.
He did not hesitate when asked if he thinks Meghavor and Alcaraz are better than Zverev. “Yeah, but they’re not number one. He’s number one.”
Zverev’s mental breakthrough
Mouratoglou said Zverev’s two Grand Slam titles answered old doubts about his nerves. In both events, Siner and Alcaraz were eliminated from the draw, and Zverev became the favorite. Mouratoglou called it “maybe once in a lifetime”.
“He’s had so many opportunities to win Grand Slams in the past and he just hasn’t done it. So at some point people started thinking. “Technically 128 guys could have won and him twice. He didn’t play well but he won the tournament and that’s a huge quality. So I think he really showed a lot of mental strength this year that he hasn’t been able to show in the past.”