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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Quarter-finals
Alexander Zverev vs Botic van de Zandschulp — 6-2 7-5 6-1
 Alexander Zverev✓ | 6 | 7 | 6 |
 Botic van de Zandschulp | 2 | 5 | 1 |
Final · Wednesday, September 9, 2026 · Quarter-finals
Result
Zverev was never broken. Van de Zandschulp had two break points all night, both in the second set, and the second set was the match: at 3-3 Zverev saved the first with a 33-shot rally, the longest of the evening, and at 4-5 he was one point from losing the set — 40-AD on his own serve — before a 15-shot rally ended in a forehand error. Van de Zandschulp handed over the break at 5-5 with three consecutive forehand misses, and won one more game all night. The loser out-hit him 27 winners to 22 and outran him by 230 metres, but made 36 unforced errors to 28 and landed 53% of first serves; five of Zverev's seven double faults came in a first set in which he faced no break point at all. It is Zverev's third US Open semi-final and completes a set of last-four finishes at all four majors this season, the only one by any player in 2026 — and he is the only Grand Slam champion left in the men's draw. Van de Zandschulp, 30 and ranked 70, was one win from becoming the first Dutchman in a US Open semi-final since Tom Okker in 1968, and had spent 5h13 beating Arthur Géa two days earlier.
Alexander ZverevRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
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.
Alexander Zverev✓Botic van de ZandschulpRound of 16
Quarter-finals
What we know now
Court: Arthur Ashe Stadium
Match length: 2:17
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
What I said beforehand
The preview, frozen before the first serve. Clearly dated, never rewritten — that's the deal that makes the pick worth anything.
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.
My locked pick: Alexander Zverev to advance ✓ RIGHT
“Hard-court Elo has it 2027 to 1744, about 85-15 and more over five sets, and the court-time argument that might have cut against Zverev does not: both men have spent about fourteen and a half hours getting here, but van de Zandschulp's two longest matches were his last two — 9h42 in three days, finishing at ten on Monday night — and Zverev's were his first two. Shaded down a little because van de Zandschulp has beaten Alcaraz and de Minaur at this tournament and has been to this stage here before.”
Locked 2026-09-08 09:40 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
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.
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.
Court & schedule: Arthur Ashe Stadium, Wednesday 9 September in the night session. The US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before; this one is on the board. (Official US Open order of play, as of 2026-09-08)
Weather: Sunday — the men's final, and the last match of the fortnight — is 78°F with showers and thunderstorms 95% likely, the wettest day of the two weeks and the one day that cannot be pushed back. Ashe closes its roof and plays on. It clears overnight: 20% Sunday night, 20% Monday, then dry and sunny from Tuesday. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-13)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.