Alexander Zverev made sure the United States' long wait for a men's tennis Grand Slam champion continued Sunday at Arthur Ashe Stadium, overpowering Ben Shelton in a commanding US Open final (6-3, 7-6[7-2], 5-7, 6-2). The top-seeded Zverev claimed his second Grand Slam title of the season after previously winning the French Open and playing in the final at Wimbledon. Andy Roddick remains the last American man to win a major on the singles side, doing so in 2003, while Shelton was the second since Roddick to compete in a Grand Slam final.
The ever-steady Zverev was calculated against Shelton's thunderous, sometimes shaky serve, weathering the pro-underdog New York crowd before pouncing whenever opportunities arose. Zverev faced only one break point in the match prior to Shelton's breakthrough in the final game of the third set when broke the German for the first time in 66 service games. Zverev opened the decisive fourth set with a break of serve during a 24-point rally, finally coaxing Shelton into an unforced error that sailed wide off his backhand.
Zverev served to perfection in the fourth set en route to capturing his second career major. Now 6-0 in his career against Shelton, Zverev has won 13 of the last 14 sets in their head-to-head matchup since losing the first set of a 2024 ATP Masters 1000 victory in Cincinnati. The difference between two of tennis' hard-court titans was experience and precision.
It took nearly three hours for Shelton to get into the match with a service break and victory in the third set, but Zverev carried himself like a champion in his third Grand Slam final appearance of the year. Shelton seemingly struggled to navigate a never-before-seen stage when pressure mounted, especially in the fourth set when pace weakened and Zverev seized control early. Carrying the weight of a country on his shoulders, Shelton was the first Black American man to reach the US Open finals since Arthur Ashe in 1972.
Ashe's widow, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, was in attendance watching Shelton try to finish out a brilliant two-week run in New York. Shelton was the first Black American man to reach any Grand Slam final since MaliVai Washington at Wimbledon in 1996. "Hopefully, I can not make the American dream come true," Zverev said before Sunday's final.
Zverev won nearly all mid-range and double-digit rallies as Shelton was unable to solve the German's expansive repertoire, but it was his tiebreaker win in the second set that clinched what felt like an insurmountable advantage on championship Sunday. With the crowd behind him for the first time in the match, Shelton grabbed momentum at 6-6 before Zverev came up with two of the best shots of the tournament in the tiebreak. Leading 1-0, Zverev passed Shelton at the net and later redirected a shot from his adversary into the corner for a 5-0 lead.
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