Tennis Prediction Ben Shelton vs Alexander Zverev: US Open

#USOpen 🇺🇸

• Alexander Zverev has played 5 Grand Slam finals in his career. 4 of them went beyond 3 sets, and 3 went to the 5th set.

• Here in 2020, he was leading 2 sets to 0 against Dominic Thiem and lost 7-6 in the 5th. At Roland-Garros in June, he was leading 2 sets to 1 against Flavio Cobolli and needed a 5th set to get his first title.

• His only final settled in 3 sets is the one where Jannik Sinner dominated him from start to finish in Melbourne. That's not the scenario tonight.

• Tonight, Zverev is the favourite, and he is for good reasons: 16 straight wins against lefties, 5 wins in 5 duels against Ben Shelton, a backhand that no one has managed to crack this fortnight.

• He can become the only player to win 2 Grand Slams this season, ahead of Sinner and Alcaraz, unthinkable at the start of the year.

• But look how Shelton is getting through this tournament: 6 matches, 5 beyond 3 sets. He lost the first set 3 times, 1-6 against Griekspoor, in the tiebreak against Alcaraz, 4-6 against Tiafoe, and he won all 3 matches.

• He's not the kind of player who will go down in 3 quick sets in front of this crowd, especially with 23 years of American drought to erase, he'll play every set like a final.

• The stats of the 2 players on serve this week don't give us a 3-0 either: 79% of points won behind the first serve for Zverev, 77 for Shelton, and the American is even ahead behind the second, 55 against 52.

• Two big servers, more than 10.4 games per set for each: this match will surely be decided on tiebreaks, and Zverev has played 2 on Friday against Khachanov, one where he was trailing 4-1 with 2 set points against him. He came within 2 points of a 4th set in the semi-finals.

• The risk, I give it, because it is very real: Shelton has only taken one set out of 11 against Zverev, and he has lost their 4 tiebreaks. The sets are tight between them, but it's always the German who wins them.

• But Shelton seems totally possessed this week, as evidenced by his huge win over Carlos Alcaraz, the American doesn't lose his matches in 3 sets in NYC, and a whole stadium will push him to win his 1st Grand Slam title.