Alexander Zverev reveals reason for Ferrero split and rubbishes rumours about Becker

Alexander Zverev has opened up on his split with coach Juan Carlos Ferrero stating that it was due to an argument between the two after his loss at the Australian Open where the Spaniard allegedly disrespected everyone in his team.

Ferrero had been working with Zverev since July 2017, just after the young German had won his first Masters 1000 title in Rome. The 20-year-old went on to add a second such success to his record under his new coach, beating Roger Federer in the final at Montreal. The wins saw him make his way to fourth in the rankings earlier this year

However, the German's performances in the four grand slam events remain a cause for concern – he is yet to progress beyond the fourth round in 11 appearances – and crashed out in the third round at the Australian Open after losing to Hyeon Chung.

Zverev has since crashed out of Acapulco in the semi-finals as he lost to Juan Martin del Potro but insisted that there have been no changes to his team barring the departure of Ferrero.

"My team is exactly the same except Juan Carlos left," Zverev said, as quoted by the Express. "We had a kind of a fight in Australia after the Australian Open, which is fine when it involves me and him. I have those kind of arguments [with other team members] and we are still working fine.

"That argument there involved my whole team and there was a moment where he was very disrespectful towards everybody in my team and that's why I had to stop the relationship."

He also went on to rubbish rumours about him working with Boris Becker in his personal camp. Zverev clarified that Becker, currently head of men's tennis in the German Federation, is welcome into his courts at any time but there is no plan to employ him on a permanent basis.

"I'm not going to work with Boris Becker. This is a very big misunderstanding," Zverev added.

"He's the head of men's tennis in the German Federation so he's going to be there at a few tournaments.

"He's always more than welcome on my court, to watch my matches, and that's how this relationship is."