For a passing moment at the end of a rugged third set, hope sprung anew for Ben Shelton. He had been outserved and outplayed for nearly three hours, but at 6-5 in the third set, one game from defeat, the American finally broke through. He burst into the return game finally pounding his forehand freely and he willed himself into an unexpected fourth set.
After he had finished pumping his fist, cupping his ear to the crowd and admirably trying to initiate a drastic momentum shift, the next sequence was most revealing. Shelton opened the fourth set with a shaky game, immediately losing his serve at the start of the set. He worked hard until the end, but he was beaten by Zverev, the top seed, who closed out a 6-3, 7-6 (2), 5-7, 6-2 victory to lift his second grand slam title of the year.
Having started his season desperately searching for his first major title, Zverev has become just the fourth man in the open era, after Jimmy Connors, Guillermo Vilas and Jannik Sinner to win his first two grand slam titles in the same campaign. He ended Shelton’s hopes of becoming the first Black American man since Arthur Ashe in 1968 and the first American man since Andy Roddick in 2003 to win the US Open. Perhaps the most relevant detail in this rivalry is the head to head.
Zverev now leads Shelton 6-0, a comfortable match-up for the German who served far better than Shelton, remained far steadier from the baseline and, as usual, nullified the effects of the left-hander’s forehand with the quality of his elite two-handed backhand. In a match between two of the biggest servers, the first job for both players was to take care of his service. A visibly tense Shelton served terribly during the decisive moments of the first set, double-faulting on break point in the first game of the match.
Shelton then double-faulted on set point to hand over a second break. He was no match for Zverev from the baseline, and his forehand was far too erratic. Zverev, meanwhile, served extremely well throughout the match, landing 69% of first serves and winning 85% of first-serve points.
Shelton managed to build rhythm behind his service games in set two, putting Zverev under some pressure by forcing a tie-break, but the German handled the most important moment of the match well. He snatched the first mini-break with an excellent forehand passing-shot winner off a timid approach from Shelton, then he ended a similarly tense exchange with a vicious down-the-line forehand to take the second mini-break. Two big unreturned serves later, Zverev led 5-0 in the tie-break and the set was all but over.
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