And at Antwerp on carpet in 1996, Stich beat Krajicek and Medvedev before winning the BO5 final against Ivanisevic (who in the SF beat Becker on the heels of his AO title in a year where Becker was a god on carpet).
I would very much dispute Zverev being ahead of Stich outside of the Slam context. Stich was much more versatile across surfaces than Zverev, despite there being more surfaces in Stich's era and more diversity across surfaces. Stich's WTF + Grand Slam Cup wins were more impressive than Zverev's 2 WTF titles. Stich leading Germany to the Davis Cup > Zverev's Olympic title. And any gap in "big" titles is erased by the number of big BO5 finals Stich won vs. Zverev being bad in big BO5 matches.
Of course, you disagree, and that's fine, but there's certainly not some huge gap between the two outside of Majors to make up for Stich's advantage by winning Wimbledon.
But these are your opinions and they remain so.
You leverage BO5s while deliberately ignoring that there were many more opportunities to play BO5 matches at the time.
It can't be Zverev's fault if the finals in the masters 1000 or in the ATP Finals themselves are now played BO3, do you understand?
Just as giving more value to a team success like the Davis Cup than to an Olympic success in singles, this is still an opinion but a rather crazy one.
You tell me that Stich's WTF victory is more impressive than Zverev's two path in hand, how it can be more impressive than beating two GOAT candidates between semi-final and final like Zverev did in 2018 remains a mystery.
The other hilarious thing, which here too I see you purposely ignoring exactly like the topic of victories against players ranked top 10, is that on some victories obtained against players like Krajieck and Ivanisevic you leverage their post-career status ignoring their ranking in those victories.
Too simplistic to say they beat player x in that final, it also reports their ranking level to make a fair comparison.
As well as based on the current status of the various Rublevs or Berrettinis who perhaps when they were beaten by Zverev in those finals had a higher ranking situation than that of the various Mancini, Krajieck and Ivanisevic.
I repeat, let's see if this time you will answer me on the question, if Humbert will have won some slam in a few years in your eyes will you re-evaluate the Bercy 2024 final, or rather, do you judge the difficulty coefficient based on the status or actual value of the moment?
Because if you judge him based on his status then it is useless to continue the debate, given that the opponents beaten by Stich have all finished their careers while those against whom Zverev competes are all still active, ergo, you like to win easily by analyzing everything with extreme superficiality.
That said, whichever way you look at it, 10 big titles vs 4/5 and 54 wins vs 39 with players ranked top 10 tilt the scales clearly in Zverev's favour.
The only thing that makes up for Stich is the slam context, the most important.
Even the question of greater versatility leaves the time to be found if the results are always in hand. Zverev was superior on hard and also on clay, therefore 2 surfaces of the 3 on which the current players are measured.