As most American tennis fans can tell you, Flushing Meadows has been a house of horrors for American players in the 21st century. It’s become something of a sports shibboleth for tennis fans to rhetorically ask each other: “How long has it been since an American won the US Open?”
Technically speaking, this is an incomplete question. Women’s tennis has more parity, and so American women have not had any trouble winning the flagship US tennis tournament. The Williams sisters won eight US Open singles titles from 1999-2014. Coco Gauff and Sloane Stephens each won a US Open title in the last 10 years.
It’s the men, specifically, that have struggled to win the ATP’s US Open singles title.
But finally, with Ben Shelton’s Tuesday win against defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, there could be an opening for an American man to end the long drought at Flushing.
When Was the Last Time an American Won the US Open Men’s Singles Championship?
The last American man to win a singles title at the US Open was Andy Roddick, all the way back in 2003.
Since then, a handful of American men have come close. Roddick returned to the championship match in 2006, and Andre Agassi played in the final one year earlier. But both men lost to all-time great Roger Federer, who won five straight US Open titles from 2004-08.
More recently, Taylor Fritz made the US Open final in 2024, but he lost in straight sets to Jannik Sinner.
Grand Slam tennis has been dominated by a handful of players in this era of the Big Three, with Federer, Rafael Nadal, or Novak Djokovic winning 13 of the US Open men’s singles titles from 2004-2023.
Betting American Men at the 2026 US Open
With Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton set to play in the men’s semifinals on Thursday, the US Open is guaranteed to have another American in the final.
Whether or not the Tiafoe/Shelton winner can lift the trophy this weekend may be another story. At a minimum, though, there will surely be an explosion of activity in the US Open tennis odds market, as Grand Slam fans come out of the woodwork to bet on a shot at history.
With Carlos Alcaraz now eliminated and Jannik Sinner absent, this is the best chance the American men have had in a long, long time.
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