Alexander Zverev triumphs at the US Open, crashing the American dream of winning the men’s singles event at the US Open, beating home favorite Ben Shelton 6:3, 7:6, 5:7, 6:2. The match lasted for three hours and thirty-six minutes on the court. The top German player started fast by breaking serve right away and then added a second break to win the opening set in forty-two minutes. The second set saw both players protect their service games without giving anything away, but Zverev was far better in the tiebreak, winning five points in a row at the start to seal it. Shelton showed great fighting spirit in the third set, breaking serve at the very end to win it 7:5 and bring the crowd to life. However, his level dropped immediately in the next set, letting Zverev get two breaks of serve and wrap up the victory behind his big serve.
The funny part of the finish was that Zverev did not understand that the match was over after the last shot landed, taking a few seconds to figure out that he had won. He shook hands with his opponent and smiled as he celebrated the second Grand Slam trophy of his career at age twenty-nine, enjoying the greatest run of results he has ever put together in a single year. He had lost the final in Australia earlier in the season, but then lifted the trophy on the red clay in Paris and proved he belongs at the top. He had also reached the final match on the grass of London, where Jannik Sinner managed to stop him.
Throughout his run in New York, the top seed did not have to play against any top-twenty opponent before this match, and he also missed both Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz along the way. Shelton had already lost to him five times in five past meetings, and the German came out on top once again under the bright lights of the stadium. Andy Roddick remains the last American man to take this title back in 2003, but Shelton still produced a fantastic two weeks of tennis, including a wild late-night win over Alcaraz that went until half past three in the morning.
Zverev got the early lead in the first set after Shelton missed his primary serves and hit a double fault on the opening break chance to fall behind 1:0. The German held his own serve easily and then survived a small push when Shelton got to 30-30 on return, staying calm to move the score to 3:1. The American held his delivery quickly for 3:2 and went up 0-30 on Zverev’s serve, but the German fought back with strong hitting to hold for 4:2. Shelton had to do the exact same thing in the next game, saving himself from an 0-30 hole with bold shots. Zverev closed out another game from 30-30 to make it 5:3, and when Shelton served next, the German attacked the ball right away and broke serve again to secure the first set in forty-two minutes.
The second set began with tough games, and Zverev had to work through a deuce before holding his opening serve. Both men traded strong games after that, moving the board to 2:1. Shelton ran into big trouble on his next game, needing a huge unreturned serve to save a break point and lock things at 2:2. Shelton gave everything he had to find an opening in the seventh game, but two bad forehand misses cost him the chance, allowing Zverev to hold on for 4:3. The two players stayed locked together over the next few games until Zverev held for 5:4, making a tiebreak the only logical way to end such a tight set of tennis. Zverev stole two points on Shelton’s serve right from the start as the American missed his targets. The German fired big serves to sprint ahead 5-0, making it impossible for Shelton to come back, and an unreturned serve closed the set out at 7:6.
Shelton served first in the third set and held cleanly, giving him the scoreboard lead for the first time in the afternoon. Unlike the first two sets, both players raced through their service games with great speed, as Shelton was finishing his games in under two minutes while Zverev spent very little time on his own. The rhythm changed in game six when Shelton had a break chance, but Zverev answered with a clean backhand winner to protect his serve. Both men kept hitting their targets until Shelton held for 5:6, putting the pressure on the German. Shelton earned three break chances in the next game as the fans got loud, and when Zverev missed an easy ball at the net, Shelton took the set 7:5.
The loud cheers from the home fans did not help Shelton at the start of the fourth set, as Zverev broke his serve in the very first game just as the match crossed three hours. The German made no errors at the net this time and held serve easily to jump ahead 2:0. At 2:1, Zverev received a time warning from the umpire for taking too long to hit his first serve, but he remained calm and won the next two points for 3:1. Shelton began to miss routinely from the baseline, dropping his serve again to fall behind 5:2 while looking tired and defeated on the court.
Zverev’s triumph on Arthur Ashe Stadium finally erases the memory of the 2020 US Open final, where he stood two points away from the trophy before falling in a heartbreaking fifth-set tiebreak to Dominic Thiem. Match statistics underline that Zverev’s primary weapon was his unyielding serve, winning 85% of his first-serve points and converting four out of six break chances to completely neutralize Shelton’s returning rhythm.
For Ben Shelton, the physical toll of a grueling two weeks clearly caught up to him in the fourth set. His path to his first Grand Slam final required a monumental 4-hour, 28-minute quarterfinal marathon against defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, which concluded at 3:33 a.m. local time as the latest finish in US Open history. While his explosive 140+ mph delivery kept him competitive, his head-to-head record against Zverev now slides to 0-6 across all ATP meetings.
The result leaves Andy Roddick’s 2003 victory intact as the last Grand Slam singles title won by an American man. Nevertheless, the run marks an individual milestone for the 23-year-old Shelton, lifting him to a new career-high ranking inside the top 10 while reinforcing his status as the premier left-handed server on tour.
