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For 23 years they have come and gone. Andy Roddick tried again. Andre Agassi made one final run. James Blake, Mardy Fish, Sam Querrey, John Isner, Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz all carried the hopes of American men’s tennis deep into the second week of major championships, only to thrash against the ceiling of the sport’s European hegemony time and again.
Now Ben Shelton gets his chance. The fearless 23-year-old from Atlanta surged into his first career grand slam final on a feverish Friday night at the US Open, completing a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 fightback over Frances Tiafoe in a pulsating all-American semi-final beneath the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium. The result leaves him one victory from becoming the first man from the United States to win one of the sport’s four bedrock tournaments since Roddick triumphed here in 2003.
Shelton, the No 8 seed, will face top-seeded Alexander Zverev of Germany in Sunday’s final after turning back a fast start from the 11th-seeded Tiafoe with his devastating serve, landing 75% of his first deliveries and pounding 20 aces before breaking at the last possible moment to avoid a fourth-set tiebreak.
“It’s amazing to be in this position,” Shelton said. “Obviously we’re not done here. The job is not finished. Super excited to get another opportunity to go out there and show my best on Sunday.”
A full house understood the assignment from the first ball. Gone was the ambient drone of chatter that so often hangs over night sessions inside the world’s biggest tennis stadium. Instead, nearly 24,000 spectators were dialed-in on every point, roaring equally for both players as the momentum ebbed and flowed over more than three absorbing hours.
Tiafoe struck first at the business end of an otherwise straightforward first set. Shelton was serving at four-all, 30-love when he abruptly lost his bearings, dropping four of the next five points and double-faulting on break point. Tiafoe coolly held at love to serve out the opening set after 45 minutes.
Shelton’s response was immediate, breaking at love for 2-0 in the second. Tiafoe broke back immediately, but the younger American increasingly leaned on the howitzer first serve that has powered his rapid ascent into the sport’s elite. Serving at three-all, he uncorked missiles of 125mph, 144mph, 139mph and 140mph in succession, the last two aces. He broke in the next game and served out the set with a first serve topping out at 149mph.
The third shifted into a more attritional affair. Tiafoe survived break points at one-all after a series of extended rallies but could not escape at two-all. Shelton crushed a series of backhand winners to break at love before forcing Tiafoe into the deep waters of an extraordinary 15-minute, 20-point service game at 3-5. Tiafoe saved three set points but blinked on the fourth, dumping a forehand into the net to move within a set of going out.
“His game is starting to get more polished,” Tiafoe said. “Instead of just being a shot maker, he’s actually staying tough in the rallies.”
The 28-year-old’s best opportunity to turn the match came immediately in the fourth. Shelton fell behind 15-40 in the opening game only to erase one break point with a 140mph ace and another with a 144mph serve that Tiafoe couldn’t handle. From there both men traded holds through five-all, seemingly bound for a tiebreak that might have forced a decider.
That’s when Shelton pounced. After holding for 6-5, he won a pair of extended rallies to reach love-30 on Tiafoe’s serve, then took the next point to earn three match points. Tiafoe saved the first, but a double-fault on the second brought the stadium to a hush as the curtain dropped after 3hr 16min.
Shelton said he had been surprised by his composure as the finish line approached. “I was honestly shocked with how calm I was out there today, especially towards the end of the match,” he said. “Calm, confident, focused. I think that that’s what it takes to be in these positions and win at the highest level.”
He becomes the first black American man to reach the US Open singles final since Arthur Ashe in 1972 and the first Black American man to contest a grand slam singles final since MaliVai Washington at Wimbledon in 1996. Afterwards he insisted he had managed to keep the enormity of the occasion at arm’s length. “Yes, I can think about how cool this moment is and what I’m playing for,” he said. “At the end of the day, I’m here in New York, I’m hanging out with my team, I’m with my homies playing a little bit of tennis and I’ve been able to downplay the moment pretty well.”
Shelton betrayed no signs of fatigue from the grueling five-set quarter-final win over defending champion Carlos Alcaraz that ended at 3.33am on Wednesday morning. That had marked his first victory over a top-three opponent after 17 defeats and ended Alcaraz’s 18-match winning streak at the majors.
Tiafoe had survived an epic of his own, scratching back from two sets down and two points from elimination to defeat Alex Michelsen in a final-set tiebreaker. But for the third time in five years, his US Open ended in at the semi-final stage. “That’s why I just want to win it, man,” Tiafoe said. “The love is incredible. It’s something that gives me definitely tears in my eyes from a kid starting how I did, and the love I have here is crazy.”
Shelton, who won the NCAA singles title at the University of Florida in 2022, reached the Australian Open quarter-finals only four months after turning pro and the last four at the US Open later that year. But he has spent the intervening years working tirelessly to add dimensions to a game once built almost entirely around his serve, making a quantum leap in 2026 while stacking titles in Dallas, Munich, Stuttgart and Montreal.
He pointed specifically to his return game, baseline stability, concentration and even sleeping habits as evidence of that evolution. “I feel that I’m a different player. I feel like I have so many more tools. I feel like I know my identity, am comfortable in my own skin, and I know what it takes for me to be playing top-level tennis.”
His father and coach, Bryan Shelton, offered a similar assessment. “Ben came on to the tour, everything happened so fast. His game wasn’t completely formed. It still isn’t,” he said. “A lot of these guys are well put together when they show up out here, and Ben wasn’t.”
That development, the elder Shelton said, has accelerated over the past 12 months. “He’s become more mature and more disciplined on the court. He’s willing to suffer a little bit in the rallies and go deeper and really use his athleticism.”
One last hurdle remains. Shelton has never beaten Zverev, who eased past Karen Khachanov in Friday’s first semi-final, coming up short in all five of their previous matches during a 16-month span across 2024 and 2025. Sunday will mark their first meeting at a grand slam. The form sheet didn’t appear to bother him.
“Problem-solving has been the name of the game here,” Shelton said. “I‘m looking forward to the challenge, being able to problem-solve on Sunday. I know what I’m up against, and I’m also the most confident I’ve ever been in my game.”
