Alexander Zverev beat Botic Van De Zandschulp 6-2, 7-5, 6-1 on Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday night to reach the US Open semi-finals, and the questions that hung over the first week of his tournament no longer apply.

He was not broken once. He faced one break point in two hours and 17 minutes. The man who needed nine and a half hours to survive his first two matches has now won his last three in straight sets.

The second set was the whole match

The first was routine. Zverev broke in van de Zandschulp's third service game and took it 6-2, five double faults notwithstanding, landing 70% of his first serves and winning 77% of the points behind them.

The second was where the Dutchman had his chance, and it lasted about ninety seconds. At 2-3 he earned his first break point of the night. Zverev saved it by winning a 33-shot rally.

Leading 5-4, Van De Zandschulp then had a set point on the Zverev serve. He ended a 15-shot exchange with a forehand error. Zverev broke in the next game, served out at 7-5, and broke three more times in a third set that took barely half an hour.

The record

The win was Zverev's 23rd in Grand Slam matches this season, which is more than any German man has managed in a single year. Boris Becker won 22 in 1989 and had held the mark since.

It also completed a set. Zverev has now reached the semi-finals of all four majors in 2026, losing to Carlos Alcaraz in Melbourne, winning Roland-Garros, losing the Wimbledon final to Jannik Sinner, and arriving here. He is the ninth man in the Open era to reach the last four at every Slam in a calendar year, and he leads the tour with 51 wins.

"Happy to be in the semi-finals," he said afterwards, calling it a different kind of match from the one two days earlier. He also said that reaching this stage has started to feel normal, and that he does not take it for granted.

What van de Zandschulp did anyway

The fortnight belonged to the loser for most of its length. Van De Zandschulp beat Alex de Minaur, the sixth seed, in straight sets. He won two consecutive five-setters, the second of them from two sets down against Arthur Gea, saving a match point in a match that ran five hours and 13 minutes and stands as the fourth-longest in US Open history.

He arrived on Wednesday with one day of rest and none of it left in his legs. At 30, ranked 70th, it was the second Grand Slam quarter-final of his career, five years after the first.

Friday

Zverev plays Karen Khachanov, who reached his third major semi-final when Alexander Blockx retired with a rib injury while trailing 6-2, 7-5 in the third set. Zverev leads their head-to-head 6-3.

The other half is all-American. Ben Shelton beat the defending champion Carlos Alcaraz 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(10-6) in four hours 28 minutes, finishing at 3:33 a.m. and setting the latest finish in the tournament's history, and now faces Frances Tiafoe. One of them will be the first American man in a US Open final since 2003.

Zverev has been here before. He reached the 2020 final and led Dominic Thiem by two sets before losing it.

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