The tennis season has turned the spotlight on Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner into a career year for Alexander Zverev. And neither player is ahead of him with two matches at the US Open.
Zverev, the No. 1 seed in Flushing Meadows, took care of business in the quarters against unseeded Botica Van de Zandschulp on Wednesday, winning 6-2, 7-5, 6-1 in two hours and 17 minutes. She will face another unbeaten player, Karen Khachanov, in Friday’s semifinals.
Advertisement
No. 8 Ben Shelton and No. 11 Frances Tiafoe awaits on the other side of the bracket after a pair of dramatic five-set wins on Tuesday.
Zverev has a 6-3 record against Khachanov, who reached his third career Grand Slam semifinal on Wednesday after young standout Alexander Block retired in the third set due to a rib injury.
Van de Zandschulp entered the match on the back of back-to-back five-set wins over the previous four days, and any hopes of an upset faded when Zverev broke him in the third service game.
Zverev continues to do what he has done so successfully this season, hitting lethal first serve with the ability to dig in and draw mistakes from his opponent. Van de Vandschulp only managed two break points against him, winning neither.
That gave Zverev a comfortable route to victory, although he had to save a point in the second set. He van de Zandschulp responded with a fresh light, ending the closest thing in danger, experienced by all the match.
Advertisement
Zverev’s double faults had some problems early on with five in the first set, but he still managed to land 70% of his first serve and won 77% of those points overall with eight aces.
Alexander Zverev is two matches from repeating his Roland-Garros triumph, despite his difficulty
The streak completes a full run of Grand Slam semifinals in 2026 for Zverev for the first time in his career.
He failed to make a comeback against Alcaraz in the Australian Open semifinal. He triumphed in an exhausted field at Roland-Garros. and was crushed by Sinner in the Wimbledon final.
This Slam will be more like impersonating Paris.
Advertisement
The translation was clearly friendly to Zverev from the beginning, and then he fell into even more hurdles early on. By the end of the second round, Zverev’s top-seeded opponents in the fourth round (No. 13 Lorenzo Musetti), the quarterfinals (No. 6 seed Alex de Minaur) and the semifinals (No. 3 Felix Auger-Aliassime) were all out of the tournament.
No Alcaraz waiting for him, after the Spanish epic disaster at Shelton on Tuesday (and Wednesday). He is not a sinner, since he missed the Italian tournament due to a knee injury.
If Zverev reaches the finals, his strongest opponent per seed will be No. 21 Luciano Darderi, a clay-court specialist with an ATP career record of 19-37 in hard courts. He pushed to five points in the first- and second-round matches against Lorenzo Sonego and Quentin Halys, but has since won three straight.
The field was similarly friendly at Roland-Garros, with No. 26 Jakub Mensik representing the high mark before No. 10 Flavio Cobolli in the last. It was Zverev’s long-awaited first Grand Slam title at the age of 29, allowing him to finally shed his mantle as the consensus best player never to win a major. There may be some legitimate snipes in that title, but tennis is ultimately about beating the player in front of you. Zverev did it vehemently.
Advertisement
Khachanov at least represents a greater challenge than your usual unwarranted opponent, given his presence in the semifinals. In addition to being a top-10 player, he is the one who took down Auger-Aliassime in the second round, and also beat No. 14 Discern Tien in a fourth-round five-setter.
The Russian didn’t have the most successful season – he was one and in three previous tournaments – but he was also in the ranks before this one. His previous two Grand Slam semifinals saw him lose to Casper Ruud at the 2022 US Open and Stefanos Tsitsipas at the 2023 Australian Open.
Zverev will still be the heavy favorite on Friday, with a warning to face a hungry American and a hostile crowd in the final. At least he figures to be some good theater, though he also has a 5-0 record against Shelton and a 9-1 record against Tiafoe.