NEW YORK (AP) — Ben Shelton was not even a year old the last time an American man won a Grand Slam tennis title.
Now 23, Shelton is in the same position Alexander Zverev once was, playing for his first major championship in the U.S. Open final. When Zverev lost that night — after he was so painfully close to winning — it took six more years before he finally broke through.
American tennis fans don't want to wait any longer.
Shelton can end his country's
drought and win the first Grand Slam title by an American man since Andy Roddick in 2003 if he beats the top-seeded Zverev on Sunday.
Shelton is 0-5 against Zverev, winning just one set. But the No. 8 seed said he has never been more confident in his tennis, and he already took out the defending champion when he beat Carlos Alcaraz in a five-set quarterfinal that ended at 3:33 a.m., the latest finish in U.S. Open history.
Should he beat Zverev, he would become the first man to beat the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds en route to the U.S. Open title since 1975.
But Zverev, after a slow start to his first Grand Slam tournament as the No. 1 seed, has saved his best tennis for the late stages of the event. Forced to play five-setters in each of the first two rounds, he hasn't dropped a set since.
The German won the French Open in June and bids to become the first player to win his first two major titles in the same year since Jannik Sinner in 2024. He hoped the initial title would come at the U.S. Open — and still can't believe it didn't — but he blew a two-set lead against Dominic Thiem in 2020, becoming the first man to do that in the U.S. Open final since 1949.
Zverev also reached the Wimbledon final and is 24-2 in Grand Slam matches this year.
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