US Open Day 15 - Zverev wins, US wait goes on

Catherine Whitaker (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to The Tennis Podcast, our final daily tennis podcast from the 2026 US Open here at Flushing Meadows, New York. Today is the end of a long, grueling, thrilling three weeks for us here at the final Grand Slam of the season. If you're new to what we do, we are me, Catherine Whitaker, Matt Roberts and David Law. We produce shows at least weekly throughout the year, covering the men's and the women's tennis tours, and we travel to all four major tournaments to bring you daily shows wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube. We try to be your one-stop shop for tennis coverage and analysis. Or in the words of Jim Currier, when we stopped by the World Feed commentary booth earlier, you guys watch all the tennis so we don't have to. The tennis we watched today was top seed, Alexander Zverev winning his second Grand Slam title and first US Open title with a four-set win over American Ben Shelton, 6'3, 7'6, 5'7, 6'2, a match with one of the weirdest endings I have ever seen in a major final. We will come on to that. David, what was the story of this match for you?

David Law (1:27)

The story of it, I think, was a man in Alexander Zverev who played this to perfection in terms of emotional approach and tactical approach. And he also played very, very well, too. I just felt the most important thing was that he just sucked all the life out of the Arthur Ashe Stadium by not riling people up, by... He shortened his services, service motion, so that he wasn't bouncing the ball as much as he had been. He was sort of watching the clock. He got caught once. He got overtime once. But he did everything within his power to not give Ben Shelton anything to get his teeth into, to not give the crowd anything to get the teeth into. He did elongate things where it does make you a bit... You almost nod off a bit, you know? And I think that that all worked to his favour.

And he showed his maturity. He showed his experience in these situations. And I'm afraid from a Ben Shelton point of view, he did some things well, some things like he's done to get to this position of being in the final, but he didn't execute on the big points. And time and time again, the few chances he set up to give himself the upper hand in a rally and to have to put away a forehand, was absolutely imperative than when he had a forehand to put away, that he could do it time and time again, he would blaze it long.

And I'm afraid you just can't get away with that. You know, he fought hard, it was a nice comeback in the third set. But I mean, I don't think, I think he's okay with it. He's reasoned that this is part of the process, and I think he's right. But on the day, I think he will have regrets that he couldn't do what he sent out to do.

Catherine Whitaker (3:17)

I think in our anticipation and in our expectations of this match, we all tried to factor in the Ben Shelton first Grand Slam final element to all this.

Whoever it is playing their first major final, we rarely expect them to win. It has to be somebody pretty special, I think, to feel like they're the favorite in a first Grand Slam final. Yet I think we all felt like Ben Shelton was the kind of character, if there is one that might cope with it better than others do. Matt, relative to expectations, given all of that, how did Ben Shelton perform today for you?

Matt Roberts (3:58)

Look, it's really hard to say because I said on the show last night, I did not expect Ben Shelton to win. I did think Zverev would win this final, and yet I do think Ben Shelton fell a little bit short of how I thought he would play. The result is not a surprise to me, but I do think three of the sets and the way they felt were a little bit surprising to me. I kind of expected the match to be more like the third set, which was extremely competitive, and Ben Shelton actually won that set, and I wasn't expecting him to win more sets than Zverev today, but I expected it to look like that, with Shelton applying pressure, and he did just about take his chance in that third set when it came. It was the first time he'd broken Alexander Zverev's serve in something like 67 service games if you include their previous matches, and it was the first time all day. But I thought he was pretty flat at the start. I mean, losing your serve in the very first game of the match, and in a manner that just showed up all the issues that he has in the matchup against the lefty, you know? Like, he missed the forehands in that game. He served into the backhand, and it came back. He tried the drop shot, and Alexander Zverev eats up the ground against him if it's not an absolutely perfect drop shot.