Prediction Markets Have Alexander Zverev Overwhelming Favorite Over Botic van de Zandschulp at US Open

The betting markets have made up their minds about Wednesday’s US Open quarterfinal on Arthur Ashe Stadium, and it isn’t close. Alexander Zverev, the tournament’s No. 1 seed, is sitting at roughly 87.5% to beat Botic van de Zandschulp on Polymarket’s prediction market, with more than $259,000 wagered on the matchup since it went live. For a sport that usually invites at least a little market disagreement, that’s about as lopsided as it gets for a Grand Slam quarterfinal.

On paper, the gap makes sense. Zverev is chasing a third consecutive major final appearance, and he’s never faced van de Zandschulp at ATP Tour level — this is a genuinely blank head-to-head slate, with no prior tour-level meeting on any surface. But the story here isn’t really about Zverev. It’s about how a 70th-ranked Dutchman with a five-hour, thirteen-minute war of attrition still in his legs somehow finds himself two wins from a first major final of his own.

What the Market Is Actually Pricing In

Polymarket has Zverev at 0.875 and van de Zandschulp at 0.125, with 24-hour volume north of $65,000 on top of the roughly $260,000 that’s already changed hands on the market overall. That lines up almost exactly with the outside models — Tennis.com’s live projection has Zverev at 86%, and a separate model from Mungomash puts him at 82%. The official US Open preview goes a step further with an actual score prediction: Zverev in four sets. One outlet, Tenngrand, is even more bullish, calling it Zverev in three. If you’re shopping around at a DraftKings review or similar sportsbook page for this one, don’t expect much value on the moneyline — this is priced like a mismatch, not a coin flip.

What’s notable is how consistent that number is across sources. When a prediction market, a stats-driven tennis model, and a tournament’s own editorial preview all land within a few points of each other, that’s usually a sign the public consensus has real signal behind it — not just recency bias toward the higher seed.

The Fatigue Question Nobody Can Fully Price

Here’s where it gets interesting. Van de Zandschulp didn’t cruise into this quarterfinal — he survived it. His fourth-round win was a five-set, five-hour-and-13-minute marathon that ranks as the fourth-longest match in US Open history, one in which he actually saved a match point before pulling out a 3-6, 6-7(0), 7-6(7), 7-6(3), 6-4 escape. Before that, he’d already needed a five-set battle to get past No. 6 seed Alex de Minaur. Two consecutive five-setters, back to back, against the tournament’s top seed — that’s the kind of physical toll no betting model fully accounts for, and it’s a big reason books and markets alike still lean so heavily toward Zverev despite van de Zandschulp’s obvious form.

And van de Zandschulp does have form. He isn’t just a feel-good survivor story — he beat Daniil Medvedev in Montreal this summer and reached the quarterfinals in Winston-Salem heading into New York. This is also familiar territory in one specific sense: his only other career Grand Slam quarterfinal came at this same tournament back in 2021, when he lost to Medvedev in four sets. A career-high ranking of No. 22 tells you the talent has always been there; the results just haven’t lined up at the majors until now.

Zverev’s Side of the Draw

For Zverev, this is about business as usual at the top of the sport. He’s the No. 1 seed in New York and arrives having reached the final in each of his last two majors — a semifinal loss here would be a real step back from that trajectory, which is part of why the market treats a Zverev win almost as a formality rather than a genuine 50-50 proposition. He hasn’t had to deal with anything resembling van de Zandschulp’s physical grind to get to this point, and that fresh-legs advantage against an opponent who just played back-to-back five-setters is baked directly into both the prediction market price and the tennis models projecting the match.

Prediction and What the Numbers Suggest

Every model pointing at this match — Polymarket, Tennis.com, Mungomash, and the US Open’s own preview desk — lands in the same neighborhood: Zverev wins, and does it in either three or four sets. The fatigue narrative around van de Zandschulp is real and worth watching in the moment, especially if he can push the match into a fourth or fifth set and make Zverev grind, but nothing in the data suggests the market is mispricing this one. An 87.5% favorite backed by consistent outside modeling is about as close to a market consensus as prediction markets get during Grand Slam season.

If you’re tracking how this and other majors are trading throughout the tournament, EatWatchBet’s US Open winner odds page is a good one to bookmark as the draw thins out.