Alexander Zverev hoisted his second career Grand Slam trophy on Sunday, beating Ben Shelton 6-3, 7-6, 5-7, 6-2 to clinch the 2026 US Open. But if you think that’s the only headline from Arthur Ashe Stadium, you’d be dead wrong. Shelton came out after the match with a bombshell idea for tennis officials, directly targeting Zverev’s now infamous, incredibly annoying, ball-bouncing ritual.
Nobody Can Believe How Many Times Zverev Bounces That Ball
What exactly got under Shelton’s skin? It’s not Zverev’s blistering 130-plus mph serves alone. It’s the wait. While there’s a 25-second clock for first serves, that rule disappears for second serves. Zverev, it seems, takes full advantage, bouncing the ball upwards of 10 times, sometimes even more than 20 times, before finally serving. It bothers not only opponents; the crowd and even the broadcasters have been grumbling about it all tournament. The chair umpire even gave Zverev a time violation in the fourth set on Sunday, a call that had the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd roaring in approval. Zverev tried to argue he was actually waiting for a crowd clearly partial to Shelton, but come on, man.
Shelton Says It’s Time For a Second Serve Rule, And He’s Not Alone
Shelton did not mince words when he spoke to reporters, pushing for a radical change to speed things up. He said, “For a first serve you should be able to do whatever you want and use the full 25 seconds every time. I think that there should be some sort of rule limiting time on second serves. You shouldn’t have unlimited time. For our sport, for the fans. I think it’s tough to be sitting there for that long for the next action to happen.” You can’t argue with that, can you? Karen Khachanov, Zverev’s semifinal opponent, echoed the frustration, calling the bouncing annoying and saying it makes it tough to prepare. But Khachanov also admitted it stays within the rules unless the time is extended. Zverev himself tried to downplay it, saying he’s not counting bounces and even tried to decrease them after seeing the issue before the semifinals. He said, “I don’t know why it increased so much. Today it decreased again, because I saw it before the semifinals so I was like, ‘OK, it’s gotta go less,’ but then I forget about it every once in a while and it goes.” But old habits die hard, apparently, because the number of bounces definitely seemed to go up in this tournament. This is the kind of scrutiny that comes with being a multi-time Grand Slam champion, and Zverev is feeling the heat.
So, where do we go from here? With a rising star like Shelton putting this out there, it’s not going away. This is not a minor complaint; it’s about the flow of the game and keeping the fans engaged. Shelton believes tournaments will look at it, and honestly, they probably should. Will tennis officials finally put a stop to these endless ball bounces? You bet we’ll be watching to see how this plays out for the next major tournaments. It’s gonna be a serve of controversy.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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