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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Quarter-finals
Alexander Zverev vs 
Botic van de Zandschulp
Quarter-finals
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Alexander Zverev to advance · locked 2026-09-08 09:40 UTCPrediction
The two of them have spent the same amount of time on court getting here — fourteen hours and twenty-odd minutes each, within a minute of one another — and arrived by opposite routes. Zverev played two five-setters in his first two rounds, 9h26 of them, and has since needed 2h26 and 2h31; van de Zandschulp won his first two in straight sets and has since played 4h29 and 5h13, the second of those the fourth-longest US Open match on record, finishing at ten o'clock on Monday night. So the fresher man is the one who looked exhausted a week ago, and that is most of the case. The rest of it is that Zverev is the reigning French Open champion, has now reached the quarter-finals of all four majors in a single season for the first time in his career, leads the tournament in aces with sixty-four, and won 86 per cent of his first-serve points against Darderi. Tennis Abstract's hard-court Elo has him 2027 to 1744, about 85-15, and over five sets rather more. What that misses is a genuinely awkward opponent: van de Zandschulp reached this stage here as a qualifier in 2021, beat Alcaraz in straight sets in this tournament in 2024, and beat the sixth seed Alex de Minaur in straight sets last week. He is also 30, unseeded, ranked 70th, has never won an ATP title and has just played nine hours and forty-two minutes in three days. I take Zverev, and comfortably, but the shape to watch for is a long third set: Darderi found one on Monday and it was the only part of that match Zverev did not control.
The case for Alexander Zverev
82% to winZverev is the top seed, the world No. 2 and the reigning Roland Garros champion, which settled the longest-running question in his career at the fifth attempt — he had lost majors finals in 2020 here, in 2024 in Paris and in 2025 in Melbourne, and lost another at Wimbledon this July. This is his fiftieth tour-level win of the season and his fifth US Open quarter-final, a mark only Djokovic, Wawrinka, Cilic, Medvedev and Alcaraz among active men have reached. He leads this tournament in aces with sixty-four and hit thirteen more on Monday night, winning 86 per cent of the points behind his first serve; against Darderi he converted four of seventeen break points and conceded one chance in three sets. He has also already survived the hard part of his draw the hard way, winning 9h26 of five-set tennis in the first week, and his own account of the fortnight is that the level has climbed every round since.
The case for Botic van de Zandschulp
18% to winVan de Zandschulp has been the quarter-finals here before, in 2021, as a qualifier, and beat two seeds to get there; he took a set off Medvedev in that run when nobody else in the tournament did. He is the man who beat Carlos Alcaraz in straight sets in the second round in 2024, who beat Djokovic at Indian Wells the following spring, and who beat the sixth seed Alex de Minaur 6-4 7-5 6-2 here nine days ago. He then won two five-setters in three days — over Zizou Bergs in 4h29 and over Arthur Gea in 5h13, from two sets down and a match point down, having lost the second-set tiebreak 7-0 — and lost the total-points count in both of them. That is a specific and unusual competence: he is 0-2 on points across those two matches and 2-0 on results. He is unseeded and ranked 70th, so there is nothing on the line for him but the tennis.
Both cases written 2026-09-08, before the first ball — frozen into the record exactly as written, whatever the result. The percentages are mine — opinions with a percent sign on. They add to 100 because tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
Tale of the tape
Alexander ZverevBotic van de ZandschulpPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-04.
Career head-to-head: ATP Tour official head-to-head record and Tennis Abstract tour-level match logs · as of 2026-09-08.
The briefing
Storylines
- They have never met. The ATP lists it as a first head-to-head meeting and the US Open's own preview says the same; our research sheet's single 'meeting' is this match inserted into its own record, with no score, and is not one.
- Zverev has reached the quarter-finals of all four majors in one season for the first time in his career, and is the only man to do it in 2026: semi-final in Melbourne, champion in Paris, finalist at Wimbledon, and here.
- He is the top seed without being world No. 1 — he is ranked second, has never been first, and is seeded first because Jannik Sinner withdrew injured, his first absence from a major since Wimbledon 2019.
- Zverev's best US Open finish is the 2020 final, where he led Dominic Thiem by two sets and was two points from the title before losing 6-7(6) in the fifth.
- Van de Zandschulp beat Rafael Nadal in the last singles match Nadal played, at the 2024 Davis Cup, and then beat Alcaraz in the deciding doubles rubber to put the Netherlands into their first Davis Cup final.
- His win over Arthur Gea was five hours and thirteen minutes, the fourth-longest US Open match on record since 1991, behind Evans-Khachanov in 2024, Edberg-Chang in 1992 and Alcaraz-Sinner in 2022.
- Both men have spent almost exactly the same time on court over four rounds — about fourteen and a half hours each — by opposite routes: Zverev's two longest matches were his first two, van de Zandschulp's his last two.
Head to head
They have never played each other. The ATP calls it a first head-to-head meeting and the tournament's own preview agrees; Tennis Abstract's tour-level logs record no meeting on any surface. Zverev, asked about him afterwards, said he thought this was van de Zandschulp's favourite tournament and that he was looking forward to it.
Source: ATP Tour official head-to-head record and Tennis Abstract tour-level match logs · as of 2026-09-08.
Watch: Quarter-final coverage runs across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app. By this round the tennis has narrowed to the two show courts, so a broadcast window is very likely. (ESPN press-room release and listings, as of 2026-08-27)
Court & schedule: Not yet assigned. The US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before, and this match has not reached the board yet. (Official US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-09-08)
Weather: The first four quarter-finals are played today in sunshine at 81°F with nothing in the forecast at all, and tonight is partly cloudy at 68°F. Wednesday, for the other four, is mostly sunny and 83°F with a 5% shower chance on either side of it. Thursday is where the week turns, and it has hardened overnight — the first semi-final day now carries a 44% chance of showers and thunderstorms, up from 31% yesterday evening, and holds at 44% into Thursday night. Friday, for the second semi-finals, is sunny and 77°F. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-08)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
The quarter-finals are the last eight, played across Tuesday and Wednesday. Everyone still here has won four matches on these courts, which is enough that seedings have stopped explaining anything and the form of the fortnight explains most of it. Four of the eight are gone within two days; the other four play for a place in the final.
Round of 16
Semi-finals