Post-Roland Garros Mailbag (2026)

**Gill Gross** (0:01)
Hey, everyone, Gill Gross here, and it is time for the Post-Rolongueros Mailbag, where I answer your questions, hot takes, observations, ultimately your comments about Roland Garros tennis, or anything else. Well over a hundred underneath that YouTube post, in the post section, the post tab on the homepage of my channel. Thank you as always for everybody for leaving your comments. I've got no preamble. Let's just get right into it. Oh, I guess my only preamble is normally I go an hour and a half, but I'm a little bit pressed for time today, so I might go a little shorter. But I'll try to go quickly to get to as many topics as we can. First one is from Colby. Hi, Gill, if they retired today, who would you consider the greater player? Daniil Medvedev or Sasha Zverev? Thanks for all the great content.
I have seen this talked about a lot after Zverev's RG title. And I actually didn't see it coming. I didn't expect it. I knew that those two were quite close in terms of career accolades. But I'm a little bit surprised that everybody is so quick to have the debate now, just because there's definitely a lot more runway for each of them to add to their cases. I don't think you can take away from your case, but you can certainly add to it. But at the same time, I understand the temptation to do so. And I am going to lean on a colleague a little bit for this. Von Schon Twitter was very thorough in putting together a list of arguments for Medvedev and then a list of arguments for Zverev. So let's read through these. Some of them are a little bit trivi- not trivial. Some of them are either small margin or not super important. Some of them are more important and more significant. That's how it goes. But I think it's all worth putting out on the table. So let's start with arguments for Zverev over Medvedev. More big titles won, 11 vs. 8 One more 1,000, one more year-end championship, and one more, well, won the Olympic gold, which Medvedev did not. Semis of all nine masters, Medvedev is missing Madrid. More ATP titles overall, 25 vs. 23 Finals at 3 out of the 4 majors, Medvedev 2 out of the 4 Better clay court player. Slightly better overall ATP win-loss record, 71% vs. 70%. Overall superior consistency since the start of 2024 Higher base level, fewer lows, and more in his quote prime. The one thing I would add to this, if the last bullet point is going to say superior consistency since the start of 2024, I would also say Zverev superior consistency or not even consistency, just superior results prior to the summer of 2019 Zverev was pretty good starting in 2017 So right now, Sasha had a period of time before Medvedev emerged, and he's also been better since the start of 2024, as Vonage pointed out. That's the only thing I would add. Let's go now to arguments for Medvedev over Zverev. More wins against world number ones, eight versus four. More different Masters 1000 titles, six versus five. Head-to-head record in favor of Medvedev, 14 to eight. Medvedev, major one, was harder in terms of competition since he beat Djokovic going for the calendar year Grand Slam. More Slam finals, six versus four. Better grass court player with two Wimbledon semi-finals. Medvedev, 12 and 11 versus the top 10 in majors, Zverev, five and 19 Medvedev, 16 weeks at number one.
Look, it comes down to a classical which do you value more? Do you want a better peak? Do you want a more dangerous and more successful peak level? Or do you want better counting numbers as a product of more longevity slash consistency? Medvedev has the former, clearly. Zverev has the latter, clearly. Because I think by far, Zverev's best argument is, look, the extra year-end championship, the fact that he has two, the Olympic gold, which I do think is a little bit of a, it's such a meaningful title, but it's also one that only comes around four years, which makes it, yes, harder to win, but also less representative of who you are as a player because the sample size is so much smaller. Like you're going to play fewer in your career. At the end of the day, the peak stuff, the fact that Daniil got to number one, spent 16 weeks there, is very, once again, like he still can. So this conversation isn't over. That's massive. I think that's a really big deal here. Getting to number one is, if you're in that elite rank, that's a massive, massive goal. It's number two after winning a slam.