Alexander Zverev Battles Through to US Open Final
Alexander Zverev walked off Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday with a straight-sets win and a face that told a different story. This was no cruise. This was a grind.
The men’s No. 1 seed beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (6) to reach his second US Open final and a third consecutive grand slam title match, but the scoreline hides how hard he had to work to get there.
Fast start, rude awakening
For a set, Zverev looked every inch the dominant favorite. He controlled the baseline, served cleanly and watched Khachanov spray errors. The Russian finished the opener with almost twice as many unforced mistakes as Zverev, and the 6-3 score felt about right. It looked like a long afternoon was coming for the unseeded 30-year-old.
It never arrived.
Khachanov steadied himself in the second set, cut out the loose swings and began to match Zverev blow for blow. The rallies lengthened, the tension rose. Zverev still held the edge on serve, but the gaps were narrowing. Khachanov refused to go away, dragged the set into a tiebreak and finally had the favorite under real pressure.
The German blinked first, then recovered faster. Zverev edged the breaker 7-6 (7), and the roar he let out told its own story. Two sets up, but no sense this was under control.
Sun, glare and a restless stadium
The third set turned into a tug of war. Neither man gave up his serve easily. Games were traded, momentum swung in small bursts rather than big waves.
At 6-5, serving for the match and trying to shut the door before another tiebreak, Zverev suddenly had a different opponent: the sun. He marched to the chair to complain about glare, pointing toward the suites. The crowd didn’t like it. Boos and groans rolled down from the stands.
According to the ESPN broadcast, the glare came from the glass on the suite doors when they were opened, sending a harsh reflection straight into Zverev’s line of sight. Whether or not the explanation satisfied the fans, it clearly unsettled the top seed. He lost the game, and with it, his chance to finish the job in regulation.
Another tiebreak. More nerves.
The glare issue lingered. Zverev fell behind 4-1, the match threatening to crack wide open. Khachanov, who had absorbed punishment all afternoon, suddenly stood a couple of points from dragging the semifinal into a fourth set.
That’s when Zverev dug in.
He clawed his way back, point by point, dragged the breaker to 6-6, saving two set points along the way with the kind of first-strike tennis expected from a world No. 1. With a place in Sunday’s final on the line, he finally broke Khachanov’s resistance, sealing the tiebreak 8-6 and the match in straight sets that felt anything but routine.
A shot at redemption
For Zverev, Flushing Meadows holds unfinished business. He lost his first US Open final here in 2020; now he returns with a grand slam title already in his pocket after his breakthrough at Roland Garros in June and back-to-back major finals behind him.
This will be his third straight grand slam final, a run that underlines his status at the top of the men’s game. The task now is clear: turn that consistency into another trophy and bury the ghosts of 2020 on this same court.
He also knows what awaits him on Sunday has as much to do with the stands as with the other side of the net. Speaking to ESPN, Zverev acknowledged the likely mood inside Arthur Ashe, with the winner of the second semifinal — No. 8 seed Ben Shelton or No. 11 seed Frances Tiafoe — set to carry the hopes of a home crowd.
“I think it’s going to be incredibly special,” Zverev told ESPN. “Especially these two guys, Frances and Ben, crowd favorites here in New York. Everybody loves them. … Hopefully I can not make the American dream.”
A historic all-American clash
Before Zverev can think about the atmosphere of Sunday, New York gets a semifinal steeped in significance.
Shelton vs. Tiafoe is more than an all-American duel. It’s a collision of eras and styles, a booming lefty serve against one of the most electric shot-makers on tour, and it arrives on a day already heavy with emotion in the United States.
Both men are chasing their first grand slam final. Whoever wins will become the first American to reach the men’s US Open final since Taylor Fritz did it in 2024. One step further, and they could become the first US man to lift the trophy since Andy Roddick in 2003.
The stakes run deeper than rankings and records. This is the first time two Black American men have faced each other in a US Open men’s singles semifinal. And whoever emerges will be the first Black American man to reach the final here since Arthur Ashe’s last appearance in 1972, on the very court that now bears his name.
History will walk out of the tunnel with Shelton and Tiafoe. One of them will come back on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET to face Zverev, with a nation behind him and a resurgent No. 1 standing in the way of a new chapter in American tennis.
