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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Final
Alexander Zverev vs Ben Shelton — 6-3 7-6(2) 5-7 6-2
 Alexander Zverev✓ | 6 | 7 | 5 | 6 |
 Ben Shelton | 3 | 62 | 7 | 2 |
Final · Sunday, September 13, 2026
Result
Shelton double-faulted away the opening game and double-faulted again on set point at 3-5, and the first set was gone in forty minutes. He played the second far better, escaping at 4-5 and 5-6 to force a tiebreak, and then lost the tiebreak from the first point: two Zverev winners, two serves he could not touch, 5-0 before he won anything. Two hours in he had still not earned a break point. He got one at 3-2 in the third and Zverev saved it with a backhand winner; then, serving to stay in the set at 5-6, Zverev made three unforced errors to trail 0-40 and shanked a forehand volley on the third set point. It was the first set an American man had won in a major final since Roddick at Wimbledon in 2009, and the last thing Shelton won. Zverev broke straight back, broke again for 5-2 and took twelve of the final fourteen points. He then won the title without noticing, walking back to the baseline to serve again before he found the scoreboard. At the ceremony he thanked his mother, told when he was four and newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes that his life in sport would be limited.
Alexander ZverevRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
The final. Two players left from a draw of 128, fifteen days after the first ball. Both have won six matches without leaving Arthur Ashe Stadium; one of them wins a seventh on Sunday afternoon.
What we know now
Court: Arthur Ashe Stadium
Match length: 3:33
Watch: ABC · ESPN Deportes · 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.
Tennis Abstract's hard-court Elo had Zverev 2027.1 to Shelton 1948.5 — a 78.6-point gap worth about 61% over three sets and more over five. But that table was generated on 31 August, the Monday the main draw began, so it does not know that Shelton has since beaten the second-highest-rated player in it. The market, which does know, opened Zverev at -150 and Shelton at +123, about 57-43. I sit above the market rather than at it, for two reasons that are both about the matchup rather than the form. Zverev has beaten Shelton five times out of five and has won their last ten sets; Shelton took the opening set of their first meeting in Cincinnati in 2024 and has not won one since. And Zverev has won 44 of his last 45 matches against left-handers, which is the third-best career rate against them of any man in the Open era. Our own fortnight numbers say the match should be closer than that: they have won 773 and 779 points, both have converted exactly 28 break points — Shelton from 62 chances, Zverev from 84 — and Shelton has 22 double faults to Zverev's 36. What the numbers also say is that Zverev is the harder man to get a look at. He has been broken nine times from 25 break points faced; Shelton fourteen times from 41.
The case for Alexander Zverev
60% to winZverev is the No. 1 seed and the world No. 2, in his third consecutive major final — the seventh man in the Open era to reach three or more in a row, after Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Sinner and Alcaraz. He won Roland-Garros in June, his first major after losing his first three finals, and lost the Wimbledon final to Sinner in July. He is 24-2 at the majors in 2026 and leads the tour with 52 match wins. Against Shelton he is 5-0 with ten straight sets, and against left-handers generally he has won 44 of his last 45, a career rate of .830 that trails only Nadal and Sampras among Open-era men with at least thirty such matches. He needed five sets in each of his first two rounds here and has not dropped one since — thirteen consecutive sets through Tabilo, Darderi, van de Zandschulp and Khachanov — and across six matches he has held 91.8% of his service games, broken nine times from only 25 break points faced. A win would make him the fourth man in the Open era to take his first two major titles in the same season, after Connors in 1974, Vilas in 1977 and Sinner in 2024.
The case for Ben Shelton
40% to winShelton is 23 and in his first Grand Slam final, having beaten the two-time defending champion to get here: 6-7(5) 6-1 6-3 1-6 7-6(7) over Alcaraz in a quarter-final that finished at 3:33 a.m., the latest finish in US Open history. He is 4-0 in finals this season — Dallas, Munich, Stuttgart, Montreal — and this is his fifth. The serve is the argument: 71 aces in six matches, a tournament-fastest 149 mph, and 20 aces against Tiafoe including eight in the fourth set alone. So is the conversion rate. He has taken 28 break points from 62 where Zverev has taken 28 from 84, won 158 of 212 points at the net to Zverev's 135 of 189, and hit 22 double faults to Zverev's 36. He will be No. 4 on Monday, a career high and the highest any former college player has ranked since James Blake in January 2007. He is the first Black American man in a US Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972, and the first in any major final since MaliVai Washington at Wimbledon in 1996.
Both cases written 2026-09-12, 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
“Five wins from five against Shelton and ten straight sets, 44 of his last 45 against left-handers, and harder to break than anyone left — nine breaks conceded from 25 break points faced across six matches. Shaded to 60 rather than the stale hard-court Elo's 61-plus because that rating was generated before the fortnight and does not know Shelton beat the defending champion, and the market has it at about 57.”
Locked 2026-09-12 05:30 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Alexander ZverevBen SheltonPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-04.
Career head-to-head: ATP head-to-head records; Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-12.
Storylines
- The US Open will have a new men's champion whatever happens. Zverev has never won here — he led Dominic Thiem by two sets in the 2020 final and lost — and Shelton has never reached a major final before this one.
- Shelton is the first Black American man in a US Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972, and the first in any major final since MaliVai Washington at Wimbledon in 1996. His father Bryan, who coaches him, was the first Black American man to win an ATP Tour title after Ashe, in 1991.
- Zverev leads the head-to-head 5-0 and has won their last ten sets. Shelton took the opening set of their first meeting, the 2024 Cincinnati quarter-final, and has not won one since. They have never met at a major and have not met at all in 2026.
- Zverev has won 44 of his last 45 matches against left-handers, the exception being Learner Tien at Acapulco in 2025. His career rate against them, .830 from 88-18, is the third-best of the Open era among men with at least thirty such matches, behind Nadal and Sampras. Shelton is left-handed.
- Zverev needed five sets in each of his first two rounds — the first top seed in Grand Slam history to do that — and has not dropped one since. His 19 hours 38 minutes on court is the second-most by any man reaching a US Open final since court time was first recorded in 1991, behind Carlos Alcaraz's 20:20 in 2022.
- A Zverev win would make him the fourth man in the Open era to win his first two major titles in the same season, after Jimmy Connors in 1974, Guillermo Vilas in 1977 and Jannik Sinner in 2024. Vilas's pair was the same Roland-Garros and US Open double Zverev is going for.
- A Shelton win would be the first major title by a former college player since John McEnroe at the 1984 US Open — former college players have lost eleven straight major finals since — and the first by an American man at any major since Andy Roddick won this tournament in 2003.
Head to head
Five meetings, all Zverev, and ten consecutive sets. Shelton won the opening set of the first of them — the 2024 Cincinnati quarter-final, 3-6 7-6(3) 7-5 — and has not won one since: the 2025 Munich final on clay 6-2 6-4, the Stuttgart semi-final on grass 7-6(8) 7-6(1), the 2025 Cincinnati quarter-final 6-2 6-2, and the ATP Finals round robin last November 6-3 7-6(6). They have never met at a major. The one final on the list is Munich 2025, and Shelton went back and won that title himself this year. The ATP's head-to-head tool and Tennis Abstract's match logs agree on all five, with no Davis Cup or Laver Cup meeting hiding in either.
Source: ATP head-to-head records; Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-12.
Court & schedule: Arthur Ashe Stadium, Sunday 13 September. 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 2026-09-13)
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.