Alexander Zverev wins US Open men’s title
Ben Shelton falls short after four-set final, American drought continues despite breakout run
Images
Alexander Zverev celebrates with the US Open trophy after beating Ben Shelton. Photograph: Cristóbal Herrera/EPA
theguardian.com
Ben Shelton was left face down after one gruelling rally. Photograph: Olga Fedorova/EPA
theguardian.com
Alexander Zverev won the US Open men’s singles title in New York on Sunday, beating American Ben Shelton in four sets, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2), 5-7, 6-2, according to the Guardian. The victory gives the tournament’s top seed the trophy and denies the host nation a first men’s champion since Andy Roddick in 2003. Shelton, who had arrived to the final as the face of a late-night, television-shaped US Open, forced the match longer by taking the third set, but could not stop Zverev from pulling away.
Zverev’s win is being filed as a tennis story, but it also reads like a small case study in how modern elite sport distributes opportunity. The Guardian notes that this grand slam season has been shaped by injuries to leading players, including Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, creating space for others to collect titles. Zverev used that opening with the sort of repeatable advantages that travel well across surfaces and opponents: steadier baseline play, a more reliable serve, and a backhand pattern that held up under pressure.
Shelton, by contrast, played the role that American men’s tennis has too often been assigned in recent decades: the compelling run that does not quite cash out. He double-faulted on break point in the opening game and again on set point in the first set, handing Zverev an early cushion. Even when Shelton’s level rose — forcing a second-set tiebreak and then breaking at 6-5 in the third to extend the match — the margins stayed thin and expensive. Zverev won the second-set tiebreak 7-2, racing to a 5-0 lead, and then broke Shelton immediately at the start of the fourth set, turning the final stretch into damage control.
For the US Open as an event, Shelton’s presence still matters: he was trying to become the first American man to win the title since 2003, and the first Black American man since Arthur Ashe in 1968. But the head-to-head record the Guardian cites — Zverev now 6-0 against Shelton — suggests the gap is not a one-match problem. If the tournament’s commercial machine is built around prime-time drama and homegrown hope, the sport’s actual gatekeepers remain the players who can serve at a high percentage, win the majority of first-serve points, and avoid donating games with double faults.
Zverev closed the final with a 6-2 fourth set. Shelton’s best chance to change the story came in the third set, and it lasted one set.