Alexander Zverev Reaches US Open Final with Hard-Fought Victory
Alexander Zverev walked off Arthur Ashe Stadium with the scoreline of a routine win. Nothing about it felt routine.
The men’s No. 1 seed beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (6) on Friday to reach his second US Open final and a third straight Grand Slam title match. Straight sets on paper, a grind in reality.
Zverev starts fast, Khachanov digs in
For a set, it looked like a mismatch.
Zverev settled first, serving cleanly, striking early, and punishing Khachanov’s looseness. The Russian sprayed errors in the opener, finishing with almost twice as many unforced mistakes as Zverev in that first set alone. The German took it 6-3 with authority, reading serves, stepping into returns, and dictating the baseline exchanges.
Khachanov, unseeded at 30, refused to fold.
He steadied his game in the second, tightened his forehand, and began matching Zverev shot for shot. The rallies lengthened, the noise in Arthur Ashe grew, and the match finally took on the edge a semifinal demands. Zverev still held the slight upper hand on serve, but Khachanov kept answering, game after game.
The set marched inevitably to a tiebreak. There, the margins shrank to a handful of points. Zverev, who has grown used to these pressure moments over the past 12 months, found just enough first serves and just enough depth. He edged it 7-6 (7), two sets clear but nowhere near comfortable.
Sun, glare, and a boiling third set
The third set turned into a tug-of-war.
Both men protected serve, trading games with little daylight between them. Khachanov pressed, Zverev countered. The German’s forehand occasionally misfired, Khachanov’s backhand occasionally lit up the stadium. The tension came not from breaks, but from the feeling that one slip would decide everything.
At 6-5 in the third, Zverev saw a chance to shut the door without another tiebreak. Instead, the scene suddenly shifted.
Bothered by glare from the sun reflecting off the glass doors of the suites — an issue noted on the ESPN broadcast — Zverev walked toward the chair to complain. The crowd didn’t like it. Boos and grumbles rolled down from the stands as he argued his case, trying to explain that he could barely see the ball on one side of the court.
The moment rattled him. He lost the game. The set moved to a second tiebreak, and the noise in Ashe surged again.
The glare still lingered, and so did the trouble. Zverev fell behind 4-1 in the breaker, Khachanov suddenly just three points from dragging the match into a fourth set and flipping the entire afternoon on its head.
Then the No. 1 seed showed why he’s been living in the latter stages of majors all year.
He clawed his way back, point by point, refusing to let the deficit or the conditions dictate the outcome. Zverev erased the gap, pulled level at 6-6, and stared down two set points along the way. With a place in Sunday’s final hanging over every swing, he found the heavier shots when it mattered most.
Match point came, and Zverev didn’t hesitate. One last firm strike, one last defensive stand from Khachanov, and the contest was done.
Three sets, two tiebreaks, one hard-earned ticket to another US Open final.
Chasing redemption in New York
For Zverev, this isn’t just another final. It’s a return to the scene of one of the most painful days of his career.
He lost his first US Open final in 2020, a match that slipped through his fingers when the trophy seemed within reach. Four years on, he comes back to Sunday with a major title already in his pocket — his breakthrough at Roland Garros in early June — and with the confidence of three consecutive Grand Slam finals.
The stakes are obvious. A second major. A statement season. A chance to rewrite his New York story.
He also knows he’s likely walking into a cauldron.
Waiting for him will be the winner of an all-American semifinal between No. 8 seed Ben Shelton and No. 11 seed Frances Tiafoe, a matchup loaded with history and emotion on a somber day in the United States. Both are chasing their first Grand Slam final. Either one would be the first American man to reach the US Open final since Taylor Fritz did it in 2024, and either could become the first US men’s champion since Andy Roddick in 2003.
There’s more: Shelton vs. Tiafoe marks the first time two Black American men have faced each other in a US Open men’s singles semifinal. Whoever wins will be the first Black American man in the final here since Arthur Ashe last reached it in 1972.
Zverev understands what that means for the atmosphere inside Arthur Ashe.
“I think it’s going to be incredibly special,” he told ESPN, acknowledging the popularity of both Shelton and Tiafoe in New York. “Especially these two guys, Frances and Ben, crowd favorites here in New York. Everybody loves them. … Hopefully I can not make the American dream.”
On Sunday at 2 p.m. ET, one of those American dreams will stand across the net from him.
Zverev has his own.
