As Wimbledon fast approaches, all eyes will be on the grass-court heavyweights like Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Milos Raonic. These are players who are threats all year-round, but are particularly potent on grass.
There are others, though, who go a little bit under the radar during the hard- and clay-court seasons, but are always ready to pounce the second they wash off the springtime clay. Here are some of them:
Mischa Zverev
The older brother of rising star Alexander Zverev by almost a decade, Mischa Zverev is a throwback serve-and-volleyer who’s made somewhat of a late-career breakthrough in 2017. In January, he took advantage of the fast conditions in Melbourne to stun Andy Murray in four sets to make the quarterfinals. And this week, he made the semifinals on the Stuttgart grass, losing in three sets to Feliciano Lopez.
Don't @ me but Mischa Zverev could win Wimbledon
— Nick Nemeroff (@NNemeroff) June 16, 2017
Feliciano Lopez
As we just mentioned, Lopez is into the final of Stuttgart. There he’ll play Lucas Pouille. This isn’t Lopez’s first grass-court final, though; he’s won Eastbourne twice and made the final of Queen’s Club once. He was also a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon in 2005, 2008 and 2011. Lopez will be tested early in Queen’s this year, as his first-round opponent will be French Open finalist Stan Wawrinka.
Nicolas Mahut
Perhaps Nicolas Mahut’s most famous accomplishment is playing in the longest match ever, a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-7, 68-70 loss to John Isner at Wimbledon 2010. But his grass resume includes more than that. In 2016, Mahut won the Wimbledon men’s doubles tournament alongside fellow Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert, and he made the fourth round in singles, losing to Djokovic-slayer Sam Querrey.
Mahut has also won four ATP titles, all on grass. These include a straight-sets win in the 2016 ‘s-Hertogenbosch final over Gilles Muller.
Gilles Muller
Muller was a 2016 finalist on the grass in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Newport, falling to Mahut and Ivo Karlovic respectively. He’ll face Karlovic again in Sunday’s ‘s-Hertogenbosch final, which he got to by beating Aljaz Bedene and Alexander Zverev.
These aren’t necessarily players we can expect to win Wimbledon, but they are athletes who are capable of taking advantage of the grass in order to make a lot noise in draws they’d otherwise be counted out of.
