Alexander Zverev Beats Ben Shelton to Win the 2026 US Open, His Second Major Title of the Season

Update, Sept. 15, 2026 — Zverev is champion. Alexander Zverev beat Ben Shelton 6-3, 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-2 to win the 2026 US Open final, his second Grand Slam title of the season and only the fourth man in the Open Era to win his first two major titles in the same season. The semifinal recap below is kept as a record of how Zverev reached the final.

Alexander Zverev had been through to the 2026 US Open men’s final after outlasting Karen Khachanov 6-3, 7-6(7), 7-6(6) in a semifinal that was much closer than the scoreline suggested. He then played No. 8 seed Ben Shelton, who had entered the tournament ranked world No. 9, on Sunday, September 13, 2026.

Key facts

Final: Alexander Zverev vs. Ben Shelton, Sunday, September 13, 2026, 2:00 p.m. ET
Semifinal result: Zverev beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 7-6(7), 7-6(6)
Broadcast: ABC in the US, according to sports-media reports
Zverev’s 2026 season: 24-2 in Grand Slam matches, 52 tour-level wins (most of any man this year), a third straight major final
Head-to-head: Zverev leads Shelton 5-0
History on the line: a Shelton win would make him the first American man to win the US Open since Andy Roddick (2003) and the first Black American man since Arthur Ashe (1968)

Timeline

June 2026 | Zverev wins the French Open for his first Grand Slam title July 2026 | Zverev loses the Wimbledon final to Jannik Sinner Before the 2026 US Open | Sinner withdraws from the tournament with an unspecified injury; Zverev becomes the No. 1 seed for the first time at a major September 9-10, 2026 | Shelton beats defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in five sets, finishing at 3:33 a.m. ET — the latest finish in US Open history Friday, September 11, 2026 | Zverev beats Khachanov in the semifinal; Shelton beats Frances Tiafoe in an all-American semifinal Sunday, September 13, 2026, 2:00 p.m. ET | Men’s final: Zverev vs. Shelton

How the semifinal turned

The Friday, September 11 win at Arthur Ashe Stadium came down to two tiebreaks Zverev nearly lost — the number in parentheses in a tiebreak score is how many points the loser scored, so those two tiebreaks were 9-7 and 8-6. In the second set, Khachanov led 5-3 with two set points before Zverev won it 9-7. In the third, Khachanov led 6-4 and missed two more set points with forehand errors, and Zverev closed it out 8-6.

Zverev called the win “anything but straightforward” and praised Khachanov’s level throughout.

Khachanov’s run to the semifinal

Khachanov entered the semifinal unseeded, ranked around No. 50. That’s his lowest ranking since 2017; he’d started the year at No. 17. He’d upset No. 3 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the second round and reached the semifinal after No. 28 seed Alexander Blockx retired hurt partway through their match, in the third set — a win by retirement, not a bye. Afterward, Khachanov said he was “a bit disappointed” because he’d had break and set chances in the last two sets he couldn’t convert, though he called the run — coming after a poor US hard-court swing — one he “would definitely have signed for.”

Khachanov also spoke publicly about Zverev’s lengthy pre-serve ball-bouncing routine, saying it “obviously doesn’t just bother me” and that “many players find it uncomfortable because it takes a lot of time” while they try to time their return. He described what that looks like in practice: “You’re ready, and suddenly he bounces the ball another twelve times… Then you have to do the split step and get ready again. And that happens practically on every point.” He was careful to add that Zverev stays within the rules on time between points, so it wasn’t something he was asking an umpire to address — just something he wanted to flag.

Zverev’s career year

Zverev reflected more broadly on the year he’s having: “Sometimes just things go your way and I feel like I’ve had a lot of struggles at the major level, I was so close so many times, and maybe this year God has said that this is my year.”

That year now reads: 24-2 in Grand Slam matches, with 52 tour-level match wins overall, the most of any man on tour in 2026. This is Zverev’s third consecutive major final — he lost in the Australian Open semifinal to Carlos Alcaraz in January, won the French Open in June for his first Grand Slam title, then lost the Wimbledon final to Jannik Sinner in July. It’s his sixth career Grand Slam final and his second US Open final; his first was in 2020. He arrived at this year’s tournament as the No. 1 seed, the first time in his career he’s held a Grand Slam’s top seeding, after Jannik Sinner withdrew from the tournament with an injury that tournament reports did not specify — which is also why Sinner isn’t the one across the net from Zverev in Sunday’s final.

Shelton’s road to the final

Shelton’s route to his first career Grand Slam final ran through one of the most dramatic matches of the tournament. In the quarterfinals, he beat defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in five sets in a match that didn’t end until 3:33 a.m. ET on September 9-10 — the latest finish in US Open history. The win snapped Alcaraz’s 18-match Grand Slam winning streak and was Shelton’s first career win over a top-three-ranked opponent, after going 0-17 against that group. Two days later, he beat fellow American Frances Tiafoe 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 in an all-American semifinal.

Sunday’s final

A Shelton win Sunday would make him the first American man to win the US Open since Andy Roddick in 2003, and the first Black American man to win it since Arthur Ashe in 1968. He’s already won four titles this season — in Dallas, Munich, Stuttgart and Montreal — and Sunday’s final is his fifth of the year. Zverev leads their career head-to-head 5-0, most recently winning their round-robin meeting at the 2025 ATP Finals.

The final is scheduled for Sunday, September 13, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. ET, and is expected to air on ABC in the US, according to sports-media reports. Asked about facing Shelton and the American storyline riding on the match, Zverev joked after his semifinal win: “Hopefully I can not make the American dream come true on Sunday.”