Photo credit: Pete Staples/USTA/Getty
By Alix Ramsay
For most of his 29 years on this planet, Alexander Zverev has been dreaming of moments like these and he has been pushing himself to his physical and mental limits to make them become a reality. But then, when the dream finally comes true, he does not notice.
So it was that Zverev served out against Ben Shelton to win the US Open title. He had kept the 23-year-old American with the blunderbuss serve and the thumping forehand at arm’s length for two sets, got tight – and a little weary – in the third set and then regained control from the opening game of the fourth.
At 5-2, he went to serve for the trophy and unleashed two massive serves to secure two match points and a third to clinch it. He patted the balls down to the other end of the court for Shelton to serve again. Only when heard the commotion in the stands did he look up. What was all the fuss about? Why was the crowd making a noise? And the he realised that the umpire, Marijana Veljovic, was calling the score: game set and match Zverev: 6-3, 7-6, 5-7, 6-2. What? Me? I’ve won? Er, yes, Sascha, you are the new US Open champion.
“I thought it was 5-1,” Zverev told the Sky TV team as he cradled the trophy. “I knew that I broke him twice, but I thought he only held once. So, I thought it’s 5-1; OK, I’m going to have a relaxed service game here and then I’m going to get tight on the next one.
“You know, tennis teachers always tell you, just play each point, forget about the score. Well, that moment I forgot about the score and it helped me.”
Photo credit: Matthew Stockman/Getty
With his check for $5.5million safely pocketed (yes, he did check that the cheque was in the envelope handed to him during the trophy presentation), he could just enjoy himself and share the moment with his team. When he won his first grand slam title at Roland Garros in June, he was in floods of tears – tears of joy and relief – but this time he was simply loving every second of the experience.
“I think I’ll be able to enjoy this one a lot more than in Paris because in Paris I was just full of stress,” he explained. “The entire two weeks I was just a massive ball of stress and it was just a massive relief when I finally did it.
“The difference was then I came to Wimbledon, I played a lot freer and I played with a lot more joy and I feel like the same thing happened here. I was playing free; I was playing with a lot of joy. It was just fun to be out there in those moments whereas in Paris it wasn’t fun. It was just a lot of stress. So I think once you win one, there’s definitely something coming off and there’s a massive relief there. And I think it helped me here.”
That win in Paris also helped erase the lingering memories of his first final in New York. Back in 2020 and playing under the Covid restrictions with no crowds, he held a two-set lead and served for the championship only to lose to Dominic Thiem. That haunted him for years but beating Flavio Cobolli in five, fraught sets on the Court Philippe Chatrier exorcised that ghost forever.
“I had flashbacks the last six years of when I was that final because I was two sets to love up, the match was on my racket back then,” he said. “I had a lot of flashbacks until I won the French Open, and then again, I think that everything disappears, and you’re just having fun on these big courts.”
Photo credit: Matthew Stockman/Getty
How many more times he will have fun at the grand slams remains to be seen. He has made hay while the sun has shone: as Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz have been sidelined with injury (Alcaraz in Paris and Wimbledon, Sinner in New York), Zverev has stepped up to claim his place on the winner’s podium.
But Sinner will be back soon and Alcaraz has already shown by his run to the US quarter-finals that he is getting back to full fitness. All things being equal, they will both be waiting for the German when the Australian Open starts in January. Zverev’s grand slam window of opportunity may be closing behind him as he heads to JFK and his flight back to Europe.
That, though, is a problem to ponder in the future. On Sunday, the night belonged to Zverev and the party was set to continue long into it.
He may be a divisive figure to some and certainly the New York crowd was cheering for Shelton, their all-American hero, after every point, but you could not begrudge Zverev his moment in the spotlight.
He heaped praise on Shelton on court and made a point of going to congratulate Shelton’s team. Both men are surrounded by a close-knit crew and both are coached by their fathers – there is a connection between the two finalists in that.
As he thanked everyone he could think of, he reserved a special mention for his mum. Without her – although she never comes to see him play – he would not be a two-time major champion.
“I want to thank one more person who is never actually watching my matches,” he told the crowd, “but she is the most important person in my tennis life and in my life in general. When your four-year-old son gets diagnosed with diabetes and the doctors in their office tell you that life and sports will be very, very limited for that child, it takes a very, very strong mother to walk out of those offices and to say ‘my son will be whatever he wants to be. If he wants to be a tennis player, he’ll be a tennis player. If he wants to do something else, he’ll do something else. But this illness will not define us’.
“And I’m happy that we worked through it. And we’re doing things that we’re doing right now. My mother is the most important and the strongest person I know because it takes an unbelievably strong woman to do what she did.”
Whether you like Zverev or not, or even if you do not really care, it is impossible to deny that after a lifetime of effort and six years of heartache after that first US Open final defeat, to reach three grand slam finals in three and a half months and win two of them is an almighty achievement.
Doing it all again next year, of course, is a whole new story.