Alexander Zverev Reaches US Open Final After Defeating Khachanov
Alexander Zverev marched into the US Open final on Friday night, grinding past Karen Khachanov 6-3 7-6(7) 7-6(6) and edging closer to a second Grand Slam title.
This is a man who arrived in New York looking battle-worn. Five sets in each of his opening two rounds, questions over how much he had left in the legs, doubts about whether the French Open champion could keep absorbing punishment. Since then, he has answered all of it with ruthless clarity: four straight matches, not a single set conceded, and now a third consecutive major final.
Zverev’s iron grip
From the start, Zverev looked locked in. He broke first, controlled the baseline exchanges and owned the opening set 6-3 with the authority of a player who knows exactly where his game is. The serve, that old barometer of his confidence, held firm. The forehand, once so often a liability in tight moments, held its line.
He carried that control straight into the second set with an early break, stretching his run of consecutive service holds and tightening the screw on an opponent who needed something special just to stay close.
Khachanov found it.
The unseeded Russian finally cracked Zverev’s armour, breaking back and snapping a streak of 37 straight service games. Suddenly the rallies lengthened, the ball started jumping off Khachanov’s racket with more conviction, and the match tilted into the kind of physical, bruising contest that suits him.
The set hurt. You could see it in the footwork, in the longer pauses between points. But Zverev refused to back off.
A brutal breaker
The second-set tiebreak turned into a mini-marathon of its own, a 14-minute test of nerve and stamina. Khachanov twice looked ready to turn the night on its head, stepping in, taking the initiative, forcing Zverev to come up with answers under the lights.
The German found them. Khachanov blinked first.
Errors from the Russian at the key moments – the kind that haunt a player long after the handshake – opened the door. Zverev walked through it, snatching the breaker 9-7 and with it a two-set lead that felt far bigger than the scoreline.
Khachanov didn’t fold. He rarely does.
The third set mirrored the second: heavy hitting, narrow margins, and again a tiebreak to decide it. This time Khachanov surged ahead early, sensing one last chance to drag Zverev into the kind of deep water that had nearly drowned him earlier in the tournament.
Again, Zverev dragged the match back on his terms. Again, he closed.
From behind in the breaker, he reeled in Khachanov, tightened his patterns, and leaned on the serve that has carried him through this Grand Slam season. At 7-6 in the tiebreak, he sealed his seventh win in 10 meetings against the Russian and his second US Open final, four years after that agonising loss to Dominic Thiem in 2020.
A Grand Slam season of dominance
Zverev’s numbers at the majors this year tell their own story: 24 wins, just 2 defeats. The French Open trophy already in his pocket. Now New York beckons again, this time with a different version of Zverev – more hardened, more resilient, more comfortable in the chaos of the biggest stages.
“I can't wait for Sunday. It's going to be incredibly special, Francis and Ben are crowd favourites here in New York,” he said on court, eyes already drifting toward the next battle. “Tonight is going to be an epic semi-final, I’m looking forward to watching it. Hopefully I can (stop) the American dream coming true.”
Waiting for him will be the winner of the all-American semi-final between Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton, a match built for the Arthur Ashe roar. One of them will bring the home energy, the noise, the narrative.
Zverev will bring something else: a season of proof, a hard-earned second shot at a US Open title, and the look of a man determined not to let this one slip.
