Alexander Zverev Advances to US Open Final After Thrilling Victory
Alexander Zverev marched into the US Open final on Friday night, grinding past Karen Khachanov 6-3 7-6(7) 7-6(6) and edging closer to a second Grand Slam crown.
This is a player suddenly running downhill.
After being dragged to five sets in each of his opening two rounds, the French Open champion has ripped through the draw since, reeling off four straight matches without surrendering a set. The win sends him into a third consecutive major final and back into a familiar arena: his second title showdown at Flushing Meadows, four years after his agonising loss to Dominic Thiem in 2020.
Zverev seizes control, then has to fight for it
Zverev started like a man who remembered that night and had no intention of reliving it. He broke first, controlled the baseline exchanges and pocketed the opening set 6-3 with a minimum of fuss, his serve humming and his groundstrokes heavy through the New York night.
He carried that surge straight into the second set, grabbing an early break and stretching his run of unbroken service games to 37. Khachanov looked in danger of being swept away.
Then the Russian finally landed some punches.
Finding his range off both wings, Khachanov began to step inside the court, attack Zverev’s second serve and crack through the German’s defences. He broke back, snapping that long service streak and jolting the match to life. The unseeded Russian suddenly had the Arthur Ashe crowd leaning forward, sensing a shift as the set hurtled into a tiebreak.
The breaker turned into a mini-epic, 14 tense minutes of traded blows and narrow escapes. Khachanov had chances, real ones, but his forehand blinked at the wrong time. Zverev didn’t. The German locked in behind his serve, trusted his backhand, and closed out the tiebreak 9-7, his roar cutting through the noise as Khachanov’s errors arrived at the worst possible moments.
Another tiebreak, same story
The third set traced a familiar outline. Zverev looked in control, Khachanov refused to go away. The Russian, playing without a seed next to his name but with plenty of pedigree, kept swinging freely, determined not to let this become a routine straight-sets exit.
Again, the set tightened. Again, it went to a breaker. This time Khachanov snatched a brief lead, threatening to drag Zverev into deeper waters and extend the night. The tension climbed, the rallies stretched, and for a few points it felt as though the match might finally tilt.
Zverev shut that door, too.
He clawed his way back, leaned on the patterns that have carried him through this season’s majors, and reeled off the points that mattered. Another tiebreak, another escape, another straight-sets victory. His seventh win in 10 meetings against Khachanov, and arguably one of the most composed.
The numbers behind it are stark: Zverev now owns a 24-2 record in Grand Slam matches this year. That’s not form. That’s a campaign.
New York waits for its final act
Now comes the last hurdle. On Sunday, Zverev will face the winner of the all-American semi-final between Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton, a clash tailor-made for a New York crowd that loves noise, swagger and homegrown hope.
"I can't wait for Sunday. It's going to be incredibly special, Francis and Ben are crowd favourites here in New York," Zverev said on court. "Tonight is going to be an epic semi-final, I’m looking forward to watching it. Hopefully I can (stop) the American dream coming true."
He knows exactly what awaits him: a partisan stadium, a young challenger with nothing to lose, and the ghosts of 2020 lurking somewhere in the upper deck.
This time, he arrives as a reigning Grand Slam champion, on a streak, playing the most ruthless major tennis of his career.
New York will bring the noise. Zverev has given a clear answer: he plans to silence it.
