Ben Shelton made a huge breakthrough when he beat Frances Tiafoe to reach his first Grand Slam final, but he faces a daunting task against an opponent who has beaten him relatively comfortably five times in a row.<\/p>\n
Shelton is now just one match away from ending America\u2019s long wait for a men\u2019s singles champion, with Andy Roddick\u2019s win in the 2003 final the last time a homegrown champion lifted the title at the US Open.<\/p>\n
After ending Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s run in the quarter-finals in New York, Shelton removed one of the big hurdles blocking his path to glory and his 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 win against Tiafoe confirmed he can hold his nerve when the pressure is on in what was the biggest match of his career.<\/p>\n
Now he faces what appears to be an even bigger test as Shelton\u2019s record against Zverev could not be any worse.<\/p>\n
These two big servers appear to have similar weapons on court, but Zverev\u2019s serving power has been too much for Shelton in their previous meetings.<\/p>\n
Alexander Zverev makes excuse for Wimbledon loss to Jannik Sinner: \u2018I was p***ed off\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Greg Rusedski calls for rule change after what happened to Alexander Zverev at US Open<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s not just the fact that Zverev has won all of their matches that confirms the German has an advantage over his rival, as the scale of his victories are also eye-catching.<\/p>\n Shelton has won just one of the 11 sets they have contested, with their most recent meeting ending with a 6-2, 7-6(6) win for Zverev.<\/p>\n Zverev hammered Shelton 6-2, 6-2 at last year\u2019s Cincinnati Masters, in a match played in similar conditions to Sunday\u2019s US Open final.<\/p>\n It was a similar outcome in a clay court event in Germany last year as Zverev won 6-2, 6-4 and the same outcome was reached on grass when Zverev won 7-6(8), 7-6(1) in Stuttgart last year.<\/p>\n \u201cBen is just a big, powerful guy,\u201d said Zverev of his opponent in the final. \u201cMassive serve, massive groundstrokes, everything he does is just big.\u201d<\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n The crowd is certain to be cheering for the American in the final, but Zverev is relishing that prospect as he added: \u201cI enjoy these kinds of atmospheres.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve played a lot of French guys in France. I think the most hostile crowd, if you call it that, is if you\u2019re playing a French player in Paris, Bercy, back in the day. That was quite intense, and I always enjoyed those kinds of atmospheres.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course I\u2019ve played Australian guys in Australia, played Arthur Fery now in Wimbledon. The Wimbledon crowd is a bit different, though; there is no question about that.\u201d<\/p>\n Zverev has been the nearly man of tennis for so long, but he is now one win away from winning two of the four Grand Slams in 2026 and cementing his status as a great of the game.<\/p>\n ZVEREV\u2019S FIVE WINS AGAINST SHELTON<\/strong><\/p>\n 2024 Cincinnati QF \u2013 3-6, 7-6(3), 7-5<\/p>\n 2025 Munich F \u2013 6-2, 6-4<\/p>\n 2025 Stuttgart SF \u2013 7-6(8), 7-6(1)<\/p>\n 2025 Cincinnati QF \u2013 6-2, 6-2<\/p>\n 2025 ATP Finals RR \u2013 6-3, 7-6(6)<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Alexander Zverev makes candid \u2018pep talk\u2019 confession after reaching US Open final<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Shocking statistics that confirm Alexander Zverev is a huge favourite to beat Ben Shelton in US Open final<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ben Shelton made a huge breakthrough when he beat Frances Tiafoe to reach his first Grand Slam final, but he faces a daunting task against an opponent who has beaten him relatively comfortably five times in a row. Shelton is now just one match away from ending America\u2019s long wait for a men\u2019s singles champion, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}