ESPN News ServicesMultiple AuthorsSep 11, 2026, 11:10 PM ETOpen Extended ReactionsBen Shelton won the all-American duel with Frances Tiafoe and now he’s the one who can end his country’s long wait for another men’s Grand Slam champion.Shelton pulled out a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 victory Friday and will play No. 1 seed Alexander Zverev on Sunday for the US Open title in New York.Shelton, 23, is the first Black American man to reach a US Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972, and the first Black American man to reach any major final since MaliVai Washington at the 1996 Wimbledon.The No. 8-seeded Shelton had plenty of energy left after ousting defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in a quarterfinal match that ended Wednesday at 3:33 a.m. ET, the latest finish ever at the US Open.Now, Shelton needs to stop French Open champion Zverev to give the host nation its first men’s major winner since Andy Roddick at the 2003 US Open.”I’m going for it here, and I’m going to leave it all on the court,” Shelton said. “I hope you guys come and back me. Let’s do it for the USA.”Zverev beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (6) in the first semifinal.
Zverev has a 5-0 career record against the left-handed Shelton, though this will be their first meeting in a major.”Hopefully, I can not make the American dream come true on Sunday,” Zverev said with a laugh.With Zverev winning his first Slam at Roland Garros, a Shelton victory Sunday would make this just the second time in the past 20 years that there were multiple first-time major champions in the same year. The last time it happened was 2014, when Stan Wawrinka won the Australian Open and Marin Cilic took the US Open.Shelton and Tiafoe drew a star-studded crowd that included stars from sports, including Serena Williams, Jalen Brunson and of course U.S. soccer player Trinity Rodman, Shelton’s girlfriend, and actors Salma Hayek, Ben Stiller and Rami Malek.”This is where we want to be: at the tail end of this tournament,” said Shelton, a 23-year-old from Georgia who was less than a year old when Roddick won his title. “This is both of our favorite tournament in the world, our favorite court in the world and to be able to light it up in front of [this crowd] is the best feeling that there is.”Tiafoe fell to 0-3 in the US Open semifinals, the past two against fellow Americans. Taylor Fritz beat him in 2024 before losing to Jannik Sinner.”I wanted to be in a Grand Slam final.
Obviously it was a big match,” Tiafoe said. “Ben played well tonight. Served really well tonight, which made it really tough on me.”After a ceremony in which a giant American flag was unfurled across the court to mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it was Tiafoe who played the cleaner tennis in the first set. He committed just three unforced errors to 14 by Shelton, whose double fault at 4-4 gave Tiafoe the break he needed.But after falling behind, Shelton started serving bigger and finished with 20 aces.
Meanwhile, Tiafoe, who won 9 of his 13 second serve points in the opening set (69%), won only 28% of his second serve points the rest of the match (11 of 39).Serving with new balls at 3-all in the second set, Shelton started with a 125 mph serve — Tiafoe got his racket up almost in self-defense and got knocked backward to the court — and followed it with serves clocked at 144, 139 and 140, the last two for aces that gave him the lead for good in the set.The pivotal moment in the match came in the final game of the third set, when Tiafoe was desperately trying to hold serve. The game lasted 15 minutes and 20 points before Tiafoe put a forehand into the net to end it and move Shelton a set away from the title.Tiafoe had his own marathon in the quarterfinals, coming from two sets down and then erasing a 3-0 deficit in the fifth set to edge fellow American Alex Michelsen. Tiafoe seemed to get slightly more cheers early, but the crowd was loud for both players as the match went on.Shelton, who won the 2022 NCAA singles title at Florida, is also looking to become the first former college player to win a major since John McEnroe at the 1984 US Open; former college players have lost 11 straight major finals since.Shelton is assured of moving up to a career high of No. 4 in the world Monday when the new rankings are released. He will be the highest ranked former college player in the ATP Rankings since Harvard’s James Blake was ranked No. 4 in January 2007.ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Leave a Reply