Zverev joins pre-June 1984 Lendl in having won multiple YEC titles and no grand slam titles.
Now I'm certainly not putting Zverev in the same league as Lendl (I personally found watching Lendl warm-up more interesting than watching Zverev play in general). But through also winning the Olympic gold medal in 2021 he has 3 titles across the 2 biggest events outside the slams, beating Djokovic en-route to winning all 3. Lendl also won the WCT Finals (a very important tournament at the time) in 1982 beating McEnroe in the final, alongside his back to back Masters titles in 1981 (brushing aside McEnroe in their semi-final) and 1982 (destroying Connors and McEnroe back to back with insanely good performances).
Lendl had some other insane feats away from the slams by that point, including winning 5 tournaments in 5 successive weeks during the fall of 1981 (with a change of surface from clay to indoor hard / carpet between the 2nd and 3rd of those tournaments), a perfect 40-0 record in ‘official’ indoor matches in 1982 etc. Plus he had led Czechoslovakia to Davis Cup glory in 1980, winning all 7 singles and 3 doubles matches that he played in, including a very hat-trick against Vilas and Clerc in Buenos Aires in the semi-final.
I still find it hilarious that he was completely schooled by Mac over 6 consecutive sets that they contested on clay in 1984 in Forest Hills, Düsseldorf and RG, but still turned the tables to beat him in Paris. Then during the summer of 1985 he was completely schooled by Mac in finals in both Stratton Mountain and Montreal (one of the most hilarious matches I’ve ever seen in terms of temper tantrums from both players), but still turned the tables to beat him in New York and finally win the prize that he coveted the most. No wonder Mac tried to deny / ignore their rivalry for quite a while.
