Shelton Falls in US Open Men's Final; More on Marcel Latak's Stunning US Open Boys Title

Ben Shelton was unable to end the major drought for American men in the US Open singles final this afternoon on Arthur Ashe, with the 2022 NCAA champion falling to Roland Garros champion Alexander Zverev of Germany 6-3, 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-2. So the streak of no American man winning a slam singles title, last done by Andy Roddick at the 2003 US Open, continues.

But one such streak is over. Marcel Latak relieved Taylor Fritz of all the "since" questions by winning the US Open boys title, last done by an American boy in 2015, when Fritz defeated Tommy Paul.

I can't believe it was barely a month ago that I sat down next to Latak as he waited to be called for his back draw match after losing a 6-4, 5-2 lead to Andy Johnson in the round of 16. He was disappointed, and has made reference to that loss several times in interviews this week, but he obviously learned from it and got right back on the horse. After another tough loss, serving for the match at 5-3 in the third, against doubles partner Tanishk Konduri in the second round at College Park, Latak went to Canada. There he won his first J300 title and eight days after that he is a junior slam champion.

Chris Oddo has written about several US juniors for the USTA's Inside American Tennis Substack newsletter, and he was one of three reporters who got an extra 10 minutes with Latak in Interview Room 2 after his formal Interview Room 1 press conference.

His article on Latak is here.

The other reporter in Interview Room 2 , aside from Oddo and me was Michael Lewis, who contributed substantially to the Zootennis coverage at the US Open this year and also was providing articles about Latak to the Times of San Diego, where the Illinois native trains. 

Lewis's semifinal article is here; his article on the riveting final is here.