American dreams crushed: Zverev ends Shelton’s run to win US Open in four sets

Alexander Zverev completed one of tennis’s great individual seasons Sunday, claiming his maiden US Open title to add to his French Open crown — and doing so in the most extraordinary fashion, not even realising he had won until he glanced up at the big screen at Flushing Meadows, according to Sky Sports.

The German top seed defeated American eighth seed Ben Shelton 6-3 7-6 (7-2) 5-7 6-2 in three hours and 33 minutes — ending American dreams of a first men’s Grand Slam winner since Andy Roddick in 2003, and dashing Shelton’s bid to become only the second Black man to triumph at this level after Arthur Ashe in 1975.

Shelton had arrived in New York having never previously beaten Stefanos Tsitsipas or Carlos Alcaraz — until this tournament — giving the partisan crowd of 23,000 inside Arthur Ashe Stadium genuine hope. A star-studded audience including Brad Pitt, Rami Malek and Pierce Brosnan roared him on, but Zverev was imperious in the first two sets before Shelton salvaged the third.

“Standing here with two Grand Slam trophies in the space of months is incredible,” Zverev told Sky Sports Tennis. He paid tribute to his mother Irina for refusing to let his type 1 diabetes diagnosis at age four define his future. Shelton responded with grace in defeat: “I’m just getting started and I’ll be back here again.”