Mumbai: Maybe it was still a bit of jetlag, as Alexander Zverev had joked earlier about all those late-night finishes from the first week.
He went from making the US Open a stage of scars in 2020 to one of success in 2026. The German top seed defeated 8th seed Ben Shelton 6-3, 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-2 on Sunday, ensuring the American wait for a first male major winner since Andy Roddick in 2003 only got longer. For the 29-year-old French Open and now US Open champion, that capped off a commanding Slam season. Zverev is the only second man from Germany after Boris Becker (1989) to win two singles Slam titles in the same season in the Open era. His 25 match wins in Slams this year, with a final at Wimbledon and semi-final at Australian Open, are the most by a German male in history. His two triumphs in the last three Slams offset four final near-misses, including the first at the 2020 US Open. The lanky German won more than 90% points on his first strike, even though his second serve was susceptible. Shelton’s forehands, however, let him down frequently; like in the seventh game of the second set, where he got Zverev to 30-30 and deuce only for his forehand to close that small window. When Shelton’s return found sting in the 12th game and Zverev’s forehand lost shape for the young American to take the third set, undercurrents of 2020 may have been felt.
Zverev didn’t know he had won. The southpaw pressed for a change and went for a drop, which Zverev got to easily and won the point. When it belatedly dawned upon him, a good few seconds after the championship point was done even as he zoned in towards his return position, he spread his arms out and laughed. Zverev had also laughed in the first week at how bad — in his own words — he had been playing. He went from terrible to the title in a week, while still laughing. He went from being two points away from a first-round crash to a second Grand Slam capture. “God has seen how hard we worked, how much we suffered, how much pain we went through. An illustration of why this was a difficult matchup for Shelton came as early as the second point of the final. A baseline rally unfolded with Zverev defending and moving solidly. Four points and a double fault later, the dangerous Shelton serve was dented in the very first game. Zverev had been here before, in the final against Dominic Thiem six years ago. Then, from two sets up, the tide turned dramatically against him.
“We went 30 years without winning a Grand Slam title, and now we won two within three months,” Zverev told his team on court.
