Zverev is simply not a better clay player than Carlos but neither was Djokovic better than Nadal on clay yet he won 2 times.
Zverev stretched Carlos to five here and beat him once. He has all the capability to beat Carlos here.
Then come to AO/USO, both are quite capable of beating each other.
Zverev just 2/3 days back gave Sinner hell in Cincy and beat him in USO last year although Sinner is slow starter than Carlos, but Zverev holds huge H2H advantage over Sinner on HC.
He is Sineraz punching bag but he can punch them back and very hard.