Alexander Zverev celebrates after winning his round of 32 match against France’s Quentin Halys. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Ben Shelton won the all-American duel with Frances Tiafoe and now he’s the one who can end his country’s long wait for another men’s Grand Slam champion.

Shelton pulled out a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 victory on Friday (September 11, 2026) and will play No. 1 seed Alexander Zverev on Sunday (September 13) for the U.S. Open title.

The No. 8-seeded Shelton had plenty of energy left after ousting defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in a quarterfinal match that ended Wednesday (September 9) at 3:33 a.m., the latest finish ever at the U.S. Open.

Now he needs to stop French Open champion Zverev to give the host nation its first men’s major winner since Andy Roddick at the 2003 U.S. Open.

“I’m going for it here, and I’m going to leave it all on the court,” Shelton said. “I hope you guys come and back me. Let’s do it for the USA.” Zverev beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (6) in the first semifinal.

“Hopefully I can not make the American dream come true on Sunday (September 13),” Zverev said.

The Shelton-Tiafoe match drew a star-studded crowd that included stars from sports, including Serena Williams, Jalen Brunson and of course U.S. soccer player Trinity Rodman, Shelton’s girlfriend; and actors Salma Hayek, Ben Stiller and Rami Malek.

Shelton and Tiafoe treated the fans to a good show, after both had to come through match tiebreakers in the previous round. Shelton, a 23-year-old from Georgia who was less than a year old when Roddick won his title, advanced to his first major final.

“This is where we want to be: at the tail end of this tournament,” Shelton said. “This is both of our favourite tournaments in the world, our favourite court in the world, and to be able to light it up in front of (this crowd) is the best feeling that there is.” Tiafoe fell to 0-3 in the U.S. Open semifinals, the last two against fellow Americans. Taylor Fritz beat him in 2024 before losing to Jannik Sinner.

After a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in which a giant American flag was unfurled across the court, it was Tiafoe who played the cleaner tennis in the first set. He committed just three unforced errors to 14 by Shelton, whose double-fault at 4-4 gave Tiafoe the break he needed.

But after falling behind, Shelton started serving bigger, and finished with 20 aces.

Serving with new balls at 3-all in the second set, Shelton started with a 125 mph serve — Tiafoe got his racket up almost in self-defense and ended up getting knocked backward to the court — and followed it with serves clocked at 144, 139 and 140, the last two for aces that gave him the lead for good in the set.

The pivotal moment in the match came in the final game of the third set, when Tiafoe was desperately trying to hold serve. The game lasted 15 minutes and 20 points before Tiafoe put a forehand into the net to end it and move Shelton a set away from the title.

Tiafoe had his own marathon in the quarterfinals, coming from two sets down and then erasing a 3-0 deficit in the fifth set to edge fellow American Alex Michelsen. He seemed to get slightly more cheers early, but the crowd was loud for both players as the match went on.

Zverev, who had long been considered the best men’s player without a major, finally broke through at the French Open this year. The German followed by reaching the Wimbledon final, where he lost to Sinner, and is 24-2 in Grand Slam matches this season.

“Sometimes just things go your way and I feel like I’ve had a lot of struggles at the major level, I was so close so many times, and maybe this year God has said that this is going to be your year and just enjoy the time on the court,” Zverev said.

Now he will try to win the title that he still can’t believe he let get away in 2020. Zverev won the first two sets against Dominic Thiem but then lost in a fifth-set tiebreaker, as Thiem became the first man to win the U.S. Open title after dropping the first two sets since 1949.

Zverev was solid after going up two sets this time, and has won 13 consecutive sets after becoming the first No. 1-seeded man to play five-setters in each of the first two rounds of a major.

Published – September 12, 2026 10:44 am IST

Germany’s Alexander Zverev celebrates after winning his semi final match against Russia’s Karen Khachanov.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Germany’s Alexander Zverev celebrates after winning his second round match against France’s Quentin Halys.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Breaking through: Zverev is the new World No. 2.
| Photo Credit: AP

Germany’s Alexander Zverev celebrates with the Wimbledon runner-up trophy after his final match against Italy’s Jannik Sinner, at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London, on July 12, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A lot could depend on how well Djokovic recovers.
| Photo Credit: AP

Human beings are not just shaped by their actions, but they are also creatures of circumstance. This is especially true in the sporting world, where athletes’ performance not only depends on their quality but also on who the rivals are, their prevailing standards of excellence and the setting in which the competition is being held.

It is like playing blackjack at a casino, a game of skill and strategy no doubt but one where luck is a big determinant of the two cards the dealer deals to each player at the beginning.

Constantly thwarted

In the decade or so that he has been playing tennis at the elite level, Alexander Zverev has been experiencing this first hand. The German has been in the top-10 for a good part of these 10 years, won 24 ATP Tour titles including seven Masters 1000s and two year-ending Finals, and clinched the singles gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

However, he is yet to taste success at the Grand Slams, having lost thrice in the finals. And he has been thwarted by not one or two but three generations of players.

When he first broke through, the stranglehold established by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic was still intact. In 2020, in his maiden Major final at the US Open, he was beaten by his peer Dominic Thiem despite leading two sets to love and serving for the trophy in the fifth.

Of late, he has been ambushed by the irresistible duo of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who have swept the last nine Slams and beaten Zverev in 13 of their last 14 meetings combined.

The latest of these came at the Madrid Masters earlier this month, Sinner winning 6-1, 6-2 in just an hour and 13 minutes. Three weeks shy of Roland-Garros, the reverse would have been chastening, for it was his ninth straight defeat to the Italian World No. 1.

Zverev, 29, followed it up by combusting spectacularly at the Rome Masters, losing early to the unheralded Luciano Darderi, including 6-0 in the final set after fluffing four match-points in the second stanza. But there is little doubt as to which of the two defeats would have left a lasting scar. 

Zverev’s current state is a paradox. He has been secure in the ATP top-four starting French Open 2024, made two of his three Major finals in this period and exhibited a much-improved level of play that is deserving of the sport’s most important prizes.

A big-serving counter-puncher with an imposing on-court presence, Zverev, from a height of 6’6”, possesses one of the best serves on the circuit. His backhand is ruthless, he is solid on the return and moves extremely well despite his towering build.

At the Australian Open, he hit with new-found depth and spin, and also added significant amounts of aggression. “I’ve worked on my first shots after the serve, my first forehand after the serve… if those things work for me, then I think success will come,” he had said.

In the semifinal in Melbourne, he came up with a first-rate performance, battling Alcaraz for five hours and 27 minutes before losing the riveting fixture narrowly. If he had served out the contest at 5-4 in the fifth, an even-odds final against a 38-year-old Djokovic would have been his reward.

Yet, he is currently in a peculiar position, placed a creditable third behind Sinner and Alcaraz, though a distant one at that. In the four Masters 1000 tournaments after the Australian Open, Zverev finished a semifinalist or better, but lost in all four to Sinner. The difference in points between him and Alcaraz in second spot is more than double his own tally of 5,705.

Monopoly? Duopoly?

Interestingly, Zverev believes that men’s tennis is a monopoly and not a duopoly. “There’s a big gap between Sinner and everybody else,” he opined after his Madrid surrender. “There’s a big gap between Alcaraz, myself, maybe Novak, and everybody else,” he added.

The attempt to bracket himself with Alcaraz rests on the evidence of the close encounter Down Under and the fact that they had split the six previous matches equally. In the 2024 French Open final, Zverev even led the Spaniard two sets to one before falling apart.

With Alcaraz pulling out of Paris and Wimbledon with a wrist injury, Zverev will have to wait longer to prove his proximity to the seven-time Major champion. But if he recovers sufficiently from his own back injury that put him out of Hamburg this week, he will have his clearest shot at Sinner on the Grand Slam stage.

“I do have to believe that I’m capable of beating him [Sinner],” Zverev, who is seeded second at the second Major of the year, said after Rome. “I do have to believe it, otherwise we can just give him the trophy without playing the tournament.”

Though Sinner is on a mesmerising 29-match winning streak, Zverev can draw confidence from his own affinity for clay. Roland-Garros has been the gangly German’s most rewarding Slam — three quarterfinals, three semifinals and a final in his last eight visits.

Four of his seven Masters crowns have come on the dirt, and he boasts of a better win-loss percentage on the surface (73%, 182-66) than both his overall career number (70%, 548-232) 70%) and figure on hard courts (69%, 321-143).

However, his past record at capitalising on the absence of one of his two great rivals is a giant red flag. In February 2025, when Sinner accepted a three-month doping ban, Zverev had a golden chance to be Alcaraz’s biggest challenger.

When the expulsion kicked in, Sinner’s lead over Zverev was 3,695 points. Despite missing four Masters 1000s and a couple of ATP 500s, the Italian returned to action at Rome still ahead by 1,645 points.

Zverev played eight tournaments in the time Sinner was away, but won more than two matches at just one event — Munich 500, where he hoisted the trophy.

Presently, though his game is better rounded than earlier, he still has the propensity to be passive at crucial junctures. And despite his vast wingspan, his skills at the net and his transitions to the forecourt leave much to be desired.

There are also seeming temperamental flaws. Last October, he extrapolated Federer’s observation that surfaces were being slowed down and said, “they [authorities] want Jannik and Carlos to do well every tournament, and that’s what they prefer”.

Off-court drama

After the recent exit from Rome, he called the courts — where he has two titles and a runner-up finish — the worst he had ever played on. Two days after that, he went after Tennis Channel, accusing it of “wasting his time” and loving to “hate on him” after the American network, allegedly, dropped promotional videos involving him.

For someone who is at the peak of his career, these are distractions he could do without. It will be in his — and men’s tennis’ — best interests if he can marry his upgraded style with a better mental disposition, and let the headlines write themselves from within the four corners of the court.

Alexander Zverev refused to be drawn after a spectator shouted the names of two women, one of whom had settled assault accusations against him, during the Australian Open 2025 trophy presentation on Sunday. While addressing the crowd at Melbourne Park following his final defeat to World No. 1 Jannik Sinner, Zverev’s speech was interrupted after a spectator shouted the names of two women who had put domestic abuse allegations on Zverev in recent years, leading to boos and whistles from the crowd.

The German World No. 2 was well beaten in three sets by defending champion Jannik Sinner in the men’s singles final in Melbourne. Zverev was outclasseed 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-4 by Sinner, who won his second straight Australian Open title and third straight hard court Grand Slam.

Following the game, a woman began shouting out as the 27-year-old Zverev stepped up to give his speech afterwards at Rod Laver Arena. There were a few boos and whistles, but eventually the spectator’s voice was shut out by cheers and claps from the rest of the crowd.

“Australia believes in Olya and Brenda,” shouted the spectator, interrupted Zverev’s speech.

It was a reference to Olya Sharypova and Brenda Patea, two of Zverev’s ex-girlfriends. Patea, who also has a daughter with Zverev, had brought a criminal case against Zverev. However, it was settled off court.

Sharypova, who is also a former tennis player, had alleged domestic abuse against Zverev, but never went to police over it.

A German court in June dropped a case against the player over allegations he assaulted his ex-girlfriend, after a settlement was agreed hours before he was due to play in the semi-final of the French Open.

Zverev, who has denied wrongdoing, was asked in a post-match news conference to comment about what he heard.

He said: “I believe there are no more accusations. There haven’t been for, what, nine months now?

He added: “I think I’ve done everything I can, and I’m not about to open that subject again.”

With AFP inputs

Alexander Zverev refused to be drawn after a spectator shouted the names of two women, one of whom had settled assault accusations against him, during the Australian Open 2025 trophy presentation on Sunday. While addressing the crowd at Melbourne Park following his final defeat to World No. 1 Jannik Sinner, Zverev’s speech was interrupted after a spectator shouted the names of two women who had put domestic abuse allegations on Zverev in recent years, leading to boos and whistles from the crowd.

The German World No. 2 was well beaten in three sets by defending champion Jannik Sinner in the men’s singles final in Melbourne. Zverev was outclasseed 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-4 by Sinner, who won his second straight Australian Open title and third straight hard court Grand Slam.

Following the game, a woman began shouting out as the 27-year-old Zverev stepped up to give his speech afterwards at Rod Laver Arena. There were a few boos and whistles, but eventually the spectator’s voice was shut out by cheers and claps from the rest of the crowd.

“Australia believes in Olya and Brenda,” shouted the spectator, interrupted Zverev’s speech.

It was a reference to Olya Sharypova and Brenda Patea, two of Zverev’s ex-girlfriends. Patea, who also has a daughter with Zverev, had brought a criminal case against Zverev. However, it was settled off court.

‘Australia believes Olya & Brenda’ pic.twitter.com/A7zowZo812

— Adam (@AdamJoseph____) January 26, 2025

Sharypova, who is also a former tennis player, had alleged domestic abuse against Zverev, but never went to police over it.

A German court in June dropped a case against the player over allegations he assaulted his ex-girlfriend, after a settlement was agreed hours before he was due to play in the semi-final of the French Open.

Zverev, who has denied wrongdoing, was asked in a post-match news conference to comment about what he heard.

He said: “I believe there are no more accusations. There haven’t been for, what, nine months now?

He added: “I think I’ve done everything I can, and I’m not about to open that subject again.”

With AFP inputs