Alexander Zverev closed the US Open 2026 with a win that also modified the power balance in men's tennis during the season. The German, number two in the world, defeated the American Ben Shelton on Sunday by 6-3, 7-6(2), 5-7 and 6-2 and won in New York his second Grand Slam title of the year, after raising Roland Garros.
The victory came six years after the defeat he suffered in the 2020 US Open final against Dominic Thiem. That time, Zverev had an advantage of two sets and came out to win the championship in the third, but ended up losing the match. Now, with his victory over Shelton, he completed the pending chapter on the same stage.
The final lasted 3 hours and 33 minutes. Shelton, who played for the first time the decisive game of a Grand Slam, will leave New York as ATP number four, the best position of his career and only behind Carlos Alcaraz in that ranking.
The American came to the match with the possibility of ending a long wait for his country’s tennis. No American man has won the US Open since Andy Roddick in 2003, while the last to try to win the title was Taylor Fritz in 2024, when he fell to Jannik Sinner.
Shelton had taken another important step by eliminating Alcaraz in the quarter-finals. However, before Zverev he found from the beginning a rival he already knew well. The German had won the previous five battles between the two.
The first part of the match was marked by Shelton’s problems with his service. He gave up his first game with a double fault and again committed another at the set closing, which ended in Zverev's hands with a second break.
The German also imposed conditions with his withdrawal, earning more than 90% of the points played with his first service. In the second half, none managed to break the service of the other and the set ended in a draw, where Zverev took a 5-0 advantage and ended up imposing 7-2.
Shelton found an answer in the third set. For the first time in the final he managed to press Zverev's sack and came to have three set points when the scoring was 0-40. The German saved one, but the American seized the remaining opportunity to take the match to a partial quarter.
Zverev's reaction was immediate. he broke Shelton's service in the first game of the fourth set and did so again to place 5-2.
The German closed the match with his sack after a long rest of Shelton. The celebration, however, had a particular detail: Zverev took several seconds to understand that that point had ended the match and that he had just become a champion of the US Open, taking the relief of Alcaraz.
The title also made him the player born in the 1990s with the most Grand Slams.Until Sunday, only Thiem and Daniil Medvedev, both with a title in New York, had championships of that generation.
With his second major in 2026, Zverev also led the race to the ATP Finals in Turin, ahead of Sinner. In that ranking, it amounts to 11,500 points against 9,690 of the Italian, while Alcaraz appears with 5,560.
