There’s not many sporting victories, particularly maiden ones, that I watch with the level of disdain with which I watched Alexander Zverev win his first grand slam a week ago.
The German won the French Open almost 12 years after making his grand slam debut and after racking-up three final defeats in previous majors, Zverev took advantage of a draw that’d been decimated by illness, injury and shock defeats to lift one of the four most prestigious trophies in tennis.
However, this tale is one far more complicated than merely being a story of perseverance and, given Zverev’s background, I wasn’t the only one who was uncomfortable, to say the least, witnessing the German achieving such a success in Paris last weekend.
The 29-year-old from Hamburg is an excellent tennis player, of that there is little dispute, but he’s also an individual who’s been accused, multiple times, of violence against women.
There are two sets of allegations against the German word number three, both of which are monumentally serious.
The first came in 2020 from his ex-girlfriend and former junior tennis player, Olya Sharypova.
Her account included multiple incidents in which Zverev, she alleged, assaulted her and include an attack in a New York hotel prior to the 2019 US Open, during which, she said, Zverev sat on her face with a pillow until she struggled to breathe. She also highlighted that, following another attack in 2019, this time at the Laver Cup, she says she attempted suicide by injecting Zverev’s insulin. And there was, she went on, an assault during the 2019 Shanghai Masters.
Sharypova is not a lone voice, though. Also alleging abuse by Zverev is another ex-girlfriend, and the mother of his child, Brenda Patea. She claims Zverev caused her “bodily harm’ during an argument in 2023.
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It should be noted that Zverev strongly denies all these allegations and neither case ended with a conviction, with Sharypova refusing to press charges and Patea’s case against him ending with a ‘settlement agreement’, under which Zverev was obliged to pay 200,000 euros, which he did, said his lawyers, to “shorten the proceedings”.
The absence of any convictions, though, does little to change my distasteful feelings on Zverev. Granted, he’s not been found guilty of anything, and with the men’s tennis governing body, the ATP, in their own investigation finding insufficient evidence to take action, it’s understandable that the German will not and cannot be banned from the sport.
But what makes me particularly uneasy is both tennis’ and sections of the media’s willingness to gloss over entirely these extremely serious allegations against Zverev. If you’re not looking in the right places - and I consider the right places to be the corners of the media which are critical of Zverev and address this huge cloud which overhangs him - it would be easy to miss the fact entirely that Zverev has had these allegations levelled against him.
I listened to the aftermath of the German’s victory over Flavio Cobolli in the French Open final at Roland Garros on BBC Radio 5 Live last weekend and all the talk was exclusively of how deserving he was of this win and how popular a victor he’d be given quite how many unsuccessful attempts he’d had at winning a grand slam title.
I wouldn’t expect any section of the media to focus entirely on the allegations that Zverev has faced, but to brush over them entirely and fail to give them even a passing mention makes me feel very, very uneasy.
There are, it must be mentioned, numerous journalists who very much have given attention to the less favourable aspects of Zverev’s story but these individuals are primarily within the written media. The broadcast media has been sickeningly silent on the allegations.
While the media has been something of a mixed bag when it comes to scrutinising Zverev, tennis as a sport has been found sadly, and dramatically, lacking. Almost without exception, the sport, the tournaments and many of his fellow players act like nothing has happened. Zverev still adorns promotional material for tournaments, is given a platform on which to promote himself and is generally treated in the same manner as the players who have not had serious allegations of violence against women levelled at them.
And this is what’s quite so infuriating. Sport is not obliged to be judge and jury for every allegation levelled at one of its athletes, but it does i’d suggest have a responsibility to take cases such as Zverev’s seriously and not place on a pedestal individuals with a backstory such as his.
Indeed, until very recently, the ATP had no policy in place on domestic violence allegations, which means players could take to the court despite being accused of serious crimes.
It's an issue Andy Murray raised in the aftermath of the Zverev allegations initially surfacing, when the Scot called on the Tour to take a "proactive" approach to the "extremely serious" allegations” levelled at the German. A step forward has been taken by the ATP introducing “safeguarding protocols” but it’s a baby step, with few observers who care about this subject convinced there is truly a desire to dig into, rather than sweep under the carpet, allegations of this nature.
And tennis is, of course, far from the only culprit here. Football, basketball, baseball and boxing, amongst others, have all found themselves in a similar situation to that which tennis has found itself in with Zverev. And in almost all cases, each sport has been found sadly lacking. The prevailing feeling within so many sections of sport is that allegations of domestic abuse and violence against women which, never forget, are notoriously difficult to prove, are an inconvenience rather than something to face head-on.
And herein lies the issue; sport cannot and will not be able to sort out any issue with which society has a problem. Sport dealing effectively with domestic violence allegations will not put an end to domestic violence in wider society. And indeed, sport must ensure its acting legally; issuing bans indiscriminately to anyone who has an allegation tossed in their direction is not a solution either.
But, as it stands, sport, and sections of the media, give the distinct impression that such a vital commodity are successful male athletes that the odd allegation of domestic violence doesn’t really matter. Keep promoting the male athlete, and discourage mention of the allegations and the mater will, eventually, go away, is the prevailing feeling.
It’s a tactic that, unfortunately, works a lot of the time. But it’s also a tactic that is pretty despicable. Sport, given the place it holds in so many people’s lives, has a responsibility to treat domestic violence victims with not only respect but care, and not treat their allegations as an inconvenience.
Any sport which does find it in itself to do this may agitate a few men, but it’ll attract a lot more admirers along the way. And I know which option I’d rather take.
