Zverev won 39 of 42 points behind his first serve, and Shelton's answer came one set too late

Alexander Zverev is the US Open champion, and the match that gave him a second Grand Slam title was settled long before the trophy. He beat Ben Shelton 6-3, 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-2 in three hours and 37 minutes on Sunday at Arthur Ashe Stadium, and the shape of it was fixed in the first two sets by a serve Shelton could not read and a crowd that could not help him read it.

The number is 39 of 42. That is how many points Zverev won behind his first serve across the opening two sets, 93 per cent, and it is why Shelton, who had walked out to a full stadium chanting his name, did not earn a single break point until 3-2 in the third. By then the top seed had held serve against him 66 times in a row, a run stretching back across their five previous meetings.

Two sets, two double faults

Shelton served first, lost the opening two points, and gave the game away with a double fault. He gave the set away the same way at 3-5, and both breaks Zverev needed for 6-3 had been handed over rather than taken. The second set was closer on the scoreboard and no closer in substance. Shelton held, Zverev held faster, and when the tiebreak came the German won its first five points and closed it 7-2.

The set Shelton won, and the game that undid it

The third set was real. Shelton's first serve started landing and he won 90 per cent of the points behind it, his unforced errors fell from 18 in the second set to seven, and at 5-6 he finally got at Zverev's serve. The break came on a forehand volley Zverev put out having had an easy forehand the shot before. It was the first set he had dropped since the second round, and Arthur Ashe reacted as if the match had turned. Zverev has lost this final from two sets up before, to Dominic Thiem in 2020 in an empty stadium, and for a few minutes the reference was hard to avoid.

It lasted one game. Shelton opened the fourth set 30-0 up on his own serve, then double-faulted and missed twice, and Zverev had the break before the set had properly begun. A time violation at 2-1, argued to boos, changed nothing. He went up 3-1, broke again for 5-2 and served it out on his first match point, a 137 mph serve that Shelton returned long. Zverev did not celebrate, and afterwards explained why.

"Well, I thought the score was 5-1, to be honest," he told ESPN. "I thought it was 5-1, which helped me; I probably would have served, like, three double faults instead of one."

Highlights of the final, from the US Open's official channel.

Two majors in the year of his first

The title is Zverev's second in the season he won his first, after Roland-Garros in June, and only three men in the Open era had done that before him: Jimmy Connors in 1974, Guillermo Vilas in 1977 and Jannik Sinner in 2024. He is the second German to win here, after the Boris Becker whose record for wins at the majors in a season he had passed in the quarter-final, and his record at Slam level this year is 25-2. The two defeats were to Carlos Alcaraz in Melbourne and Sinner in the Wimbledon final. Everyone else he has beaten, Shelton now six times from six.

For Shelton, 23, the wait goes on. No American man has won a major since Andy Roddick on this court in 2003, and he was the first Black American man in the final here since Arthur Ashe in 1972. He rises to a career-high No. 4 on Monday, and his runner-up speech was the most generous thing said all night.

"Sascha, you're one of the very best players in the world, maybe the best player in the world this year," he said. "You work harder than anyone I know. It's been a long time coming here."