{"id":224026,"date":"2026-09-13T09:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T09:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ben-shelton-beats-frances-tiafoe-to-play-alexander-zverev-for-the-u-s-open-title-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T09:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T09:38:21","slug":"ben-shelton-beats-frances-tiafoe-to-play-alexander-zverev-for-the-u-s-open-title-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ben-shelton-beats-frances-tiafoe-to-play-alexander-zverev-for-the-u-s-open-title-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Shelton beats Frances Tiafoe to play Alexander Zverev for the U.S. Open title – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ben Shelton won the all-American duel with Frances Tiafoe and now he\u2019s the one who can end his country\u2019s long wait for another men\u2019s Grand Slam champion.
Shelton pulled out a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 victory on Friday and will play No. 1 seed Alexander Zverev on Sunday for the U.S. Open title.
The No. 8-seeded Shelton had plenty of energy left after ousting defending champion Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> in a quarterfinal match that ended Wednesday at 3:33 a.m., the latest finish ever at the U.S. Open.
Now he needs to stop French Open champion Zverev to give the host nation its first men\u2019s major winner since Andy Roddick at the 2003 U.S. Open.
\u201cI\u2019m going for it here, and I\u2019m going to leave it all on the court,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cI hope you guys come and back me. Let\u2019s do it for the USA.\u201d
Zverev beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (6) in the first semifinal.
\u201cHopefully I can not make the American dream come true on Sunday,\u201d Zverev said.
The Shelton-Tiafoe match 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\u2019s girlfriend; and actors Salma Hayek, Ben Stiller and Rami Malek.
Shelton and Tiafoe treated the fans to a good show, after both had to come through match tiebreakers in the previous round. Shelton, a 23-year-old from Georgia who was less than a year old when Roddick won his title, advanced to his first major final.
\u201cThis is where we want to be: at the tail end of this tournament,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cThis 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.\u201d
Tiafoe fell to 0-3 in the U.S. Open semifinals, the last two against fellow Americans. Taylor Fritz beat him in 2024 before losing to Jannik Sinner.
After a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the 9\/11 attacks in which a giant American flag was unfurled across the court, 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.
Serving with new balls at 3-all in the second set, Shelton started with a 125 mph serve \u2014 Tiafoe got his racket up almost in self-defense and ended up getting knocked backward to the court \u2014 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. He seemed to get slightly more cheers early, but the crowd was loud for both players as the match went on.
Zverev, who had long been considered the best men\u2019s player without a major, finally broke through at the French Open this year. The German followed by reaching the Wimbledon final, where he lost to Sinner, and is 24-2 in Grand Slam matches this season.
\u201cSometimes just things go your way and I feel like I\u2019ve had a lot of struggles at the major level, I was so close so many times, and maybe this year God has said that this is going to be your year and just enjoy the time on the court,\u201d Zverev said.
Now he will try to win the title that he still can\u2019t believe he let get away in 2020<\/a>. Zverev won the first two sets against Dominic Thiem but then lost in a fifth-set tiebreaker, as Thiem became the first man to win the U.S. Open title after dropping the first two sets since 1949.
Zverev was solid after going up two sets this time, and has won 13 consecutive sets after becoming the first No. 1-seeded man to play five-setters in each of the first two rounds of a major.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeBen Shelton won the all-American duel with Frances Tiafoe and now he\u2019s the one who can end his country\u2019s long wait for another men\u2019s Grand Slam champion.Shelton pulled out a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 victory on Friday and will play No. 1 seed Alexander Zverev on Sunday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}