*Originally published in Japanese in Forbes JAPAN on October 5, 2026.
English translation by the author.
The men’s singles final of the US Open, played in New York on September 13 (local time): top seed Alexander Zverev of Germany defeated eighth seed Ben Shelton of the United States to win the title for the first time.
It was Zverev’s second Grand Slam title overall, following the French Open in June — but what really caught people’s attention was what he said at the trophy ceremony.
This speech looks, at first glance, like pure improvisation.
But in fact, trophy-ceremony speeches in tennis follow a shared, unspoken form. They open with respect and praise for the opponent, move on to acknowledging the opponent’s camp — family, team — then shift to gratitude for one’s own team and family, then the tournament organizers and volunteers, closing with thanks to the crowd. This structure barely shifts from player to player.
As proof: Shelton’s runner-up speech, delivered just before Zverev’s, followed the exact same form.
The Form That Makes Improvisation Possible
Zverev’s speech stayed faithful to that form too. He opened by praising Shelton, named members of Shelton’s family and team one by one, gave the longest stretch of time to his own team and mother, spread words of thanks across the tournament director, the ball kids, and the behind-the-scenes staff, and closed by telling the crowd, “I’m sorry, but thank you.” It’s a sequence top players absorb into their bodies over countless ceremonies, losing press conferences, and media appearances, going back to their junior years.
What matters here is the paradox: it’s precisely because this “form” exists that no script, no teleprompter, is needed. Because the skeleton of what to say is already in his body, Zverev could look up — not down at notes, not searching his memory for rehearsed answers — and look straight at Shelton, at his own family in the stands, giving his full attention to whatever feeling rose up in the moment.
It isn’t just the absence of a script. The teleprompter used in political speeches and formal ceremonies doesn’t exist on a tennis court either.
A teleprompter is, in effect, a device for making “prepared words” look like improvisation. The fact that no such device exists on court means every stumble, every hesitation, is left fully exposed to the crowd.
Moments after the match ends, before his breathing has even settled, he produces this much language, carried along entirely by what he’s feeling in the moment. There’s no discounting how much it matters that he’s logged this kind of stage time since childhood. Because the “form” of the speech — the skeleton, to use an athlete’s word — is already built into his body, he doesn’t have to spend effort constructing it on the spot. And yet the fact that he’s logged all that stage time doesn’t diminish the sense that what comes out of him is genuinely his own feeling. If anything, what’s remarkable is that raw emotion can still ride on top of a well-trained form.
This stands in sharp contrast to the reality that so many executives and politicians can’t speak without a teleprompter or rehearsed answers. It isn’t a gap in ability. It’s simply that the order of who to thank, the skeleton of what to say, hasn’t been trained into the body through repetition. Earnings calls and shareholder meetings are, for the most part, built around the assumption that there’s a script — structurally, there are few opportunities to practice speaking emotional language on the spot. Stand in front of a crowd without that form, and a printed script is all you have left to lean on.
Four “I’m Sorry’s”
There’s one more feature of this speech worth noting. He said “I’m sorry” three times, plus one close variant — “my apologies” — for four apologies in total.
The first was for stumbling over his words: “I’m sorry, I can’t really talk well right now — we played for four hours.” The second was for keeping the tournament staff up: “The reason a lot of you were up until four or five in the morning this year — I’m sorry about that.” The third, to the tournament director, half as a joke: “I think you kind of got the wrong winner this year, sorry about that.” And the fourth was an apology for failing to meet the crowd’s hopes — for the simple fact that he’d won: “I know 99.9 percent of the people here today wanted Ben to win. So, first of all, I’m sorry.”
The reason for each apology, and who it’s directed at, is different every time. If there had been a prepared script, an apology would likely have appeared once, maybe twice, as a set phrase. Instead, Zverev kept noticing — live, as he spoke — fresh situations that seemed to call for an apology, and stopped to offer one each time.
I think these four “I’m sorrys” are the clearest evidence that he was speaking without a script, reading the room moment by moment. And it’s that frequency of apology that turned the whole speech into something closer to one person’s private monologue than a winner’s address. Victory is supposed to be the one moment you’re allowed to be unapologetic about yourself — and not many champions use it to say “sorry” this many times.
The Four Qualities Running Through the Speech
I’d like to look at how he gave this form real blood and breath. To me, four qualities surfaced: maturity, consideration, the courage to go unguarded, and a clear-eyed read of the room.
The first is maturity. Zverev — a man who had lost three previous finals — spoke that day with the composure of a champion. A world away from the gamesmanship he’d shown on court during the match, he strung his words together steadily, without being swept up by emotion, in a way that only someone who has lived through repeated defeat can manage.
To the defeated Shelton, Zverev’s first words were: “Ben, you’re an amazing player and an amazing human being.” And he went further: “This was your first Grand Slam final, but like I already told you, I think you’re going to be back on this stage many, many times. If I had to bet all the money I have, I’d bet on you holding this trophy one day.”
Words of praise from a winner to the loser often carry a whiff of formality. Here, there was a directness that cut through that. It’s the kind of weight only available to someone who has stood in that exact losing spot himself.
The second is consideration. He carefully praised Shelton’s fight and his future, then — with some humor mixed in — spread thanks across Shelton’s family and team, his own team, tournament officials, and the crowd, missing no one. He named individual members of Shelton’s family and team one by one: “Every single one of you on that side means just as much as everyone on this side of the court.”
Matches rarely go the way you hope — so before anything else, honor the person who lost, and don’t make too much of your own win. That’s consideration extended toward the opponent’s family, team, and the many people who were rooting for him. It’s also another version of the “absorbing the resistance and drawing it to his side” behavior discussed in Part One.
The third is the courage to go unguarded. The longest stretch of the speech was devoted to his mother, who, he said, barely watches his matches. “When my son was diagnosed with diabetes at four” — this is his own childhood memory. When a doctor told the family it would place major limits on his life and on playing sports, his mother walked out of that appointment and said: “My son is going to become whoever he wants to become. If he wants to be a tennis player, he’ll be a tennis player.”
He chose the single most visible moment of his career to speak, for the first time in any real depth, about a condition he’d kept almost entirely private for years — and used it to lead into his mother’s strength. Stumbling repeatedly over his words, and still pushing through to the end without softening any of it, was itself what made this unguardedness so apparent.
The fourth is a clear-eyed read of the room. He’d accurately registered every uncomfortable undercurrent in the building — that most of the crowd had been behind his opponent, that even the broadcast had spent the winning moment naming other players. And even so, he never lost his composure, choosing his words carefully to the very end.
To the crowd, he said, “I know 99.9 percent of the people here today wanted Ben to win,” adding, “so, first of all, I’m sorry.” And yet he continued: “The atmosphere playing here was still incredible,” “you guys were always so fair.”
To read the mood around you accurately while your own emotions are running high, and to adjust your behavior accordingly — this, too, is a form of mastery that comes from living through plenty of unfair and difficult moments, and from the “form” of the speech itself, absorbed through countless ceremonies.
At the same time, he also stumbled: “I want to thank — no, sorry —” The fact that clear-eyed awareness and awkward hesitation could coexist in the same few minutes is, itself, what tells you this wasn’t a script.
Gratitude for the People No One Sees
One more thing in the second half of the speech shouldn’t be overlooked. Ball kids, backstage staff, drivers, restaurant workers who’d stayed up late — people who are never usually in the spotlight — he thanked each of them as if picturing exactly what their job involved. “To everyone who stayed up late just for us — we, the players, are truly grateful.”
A word of appreciation for the tournament director in his first year on the job, a warm and lightly joking welcome for the newcomer who’d arrived after years running the Australian Open — rather than keeping the glory of victory for himself, he distributed words across every level of people who’d supported the event. It embodied, in miniature, how leadership handles both the visible achievements and the invisible labor behind them.
And for everything packed into it, the speech ran just six minutes and thirty seconds. Not rushed, not drawn-out either. Still, he closed it himself: “I think I’ve talked enough — thank you. See you all again next year.” He stopped because he’d said what needed saying, not because he’d run out of things to say. That sense of knowing when to stop may be something only available to someone who has internalized both the form and the feeling.
What It Means for Business Leaders
Maturity, consideration, the courage to go unguarded, a clear-eyed read of the room — none of these can be taught through a manual on delivery, grooming, or posture. They come from refusing to lose yourself even while absorbing resistance, from having already internalized who deserves thanks, and from the courage — built on top of that form — to speak about hardship and weakness without dressing it up.
The gap between executives who can’t speak without a script or a teleprompter, and an athlete who can look his family, his team, and the crowd in the eye without glancing down — that gap isn’t talent. It’s the difference in how much stage time each has logged training emotional language into their body and mind.
Rather than pretending criticism or adversity never happened, absorb it first — and only then, through sincerity and grace, shift the mood in the room. I think that’s the most essential capability a leader is asked for when standing at a podium under pressure.
Trust from the people around you is built less by flawlessly polished behavior than by the courage to let your imperfection and your feeling show, openly, on top of that foundation of form. He was the last person in the stadium to realize he’d won. I think the whole essence of that day’s speech was contained in those few blank seconds.
This article is part of Insights by Niena Etsuko Hino, a collection of selected English articles and translations exploring branding, executive presence, and cross-cultural business strategy.
The instant Ben Shelton’s return of Alexander Zverev’s serve sailed past the baseline, the stadium rose to its feet.
Zverev himself, for a moment, didn’t seem to register what had happened. He even made a motion to play on, turning toward Shelton — until his coaches, from the bench, had to signal that he’d just won.
It happened during the men’s singles final of the US Open in New York, on September 13 (local time). Clips of it spread instantly across social media, branded “the clumsiest winning moment in tennis history.” The internet laughed at what looked like a non-event. I saw the opposite. In those few seconds before his arms finally shot skyward, I think everything about that day was contained.
When he was called up for the trophy presentation, the host told him:
“Sascha” — as those close to Zverev call him — “it’s taken you a while to get to this moment, and to this microphone. Now, it’s yours.”
That one line, it turns out, previewed the whole theme of the speech to come. The winner is always the last to feel the weight of what’s happened; the people watching from outside feel it first. That gap in timing is what makes this particular case so interesting.
When someone truly arrives at a milestone, their sense of reality tends to lag — and the words don’t come easily. Zverev’s speech, in fact, kept stalling: “I want to thank— no, sorry— I can’t really talk right now.” It wasn’t a polished oration. It was the unfinished quality of someone visibly searching for the next word, live, that made the speech remarkable.
For Zverev, this was no ordinary win. He’d lost the 2020 US Open final to Dominic Thiem after being two sets up; the 2024 French Open final to Carlos Alcaraz; the 2025 Australian Open final to Jannik Sinner. Three runner-up finishes sat on his shoulders before he finally broke through — first at this year’s French Open, now here. “We didn’t win a Grand Slam for thirty years” (a nod to the long drought German men’s tennis had gone through) “and now we’ve won two in three months.” That wasn’t false modesty. It was a reference to everything accumulated over those years.
A Few Gestures, Aimed at the Trophy
In the few minutes between the win being confirmed and the podium, Zverev moved through several distinct gestures, each with a different register.
Taking the trophy from Jimmy Connors — the former world No. 1 and legend of the game — he raised it overhead with both hands and leaned back, face turned to the sky. He rotated slowly, a full 360 degrees, so every seat in the stadium could see it. Fireworks had begun behind him. He kissed the trophy, and held the kiss.
Every one of these was a gesture aimed outward, at the crowd — an open, extroverted expression of joy, meant to brand the win onto tens of thousands of pairs of eyes.
But what came right after was something else entirely. He lowered the trophy, slowly, down to his chest, and simply looked at it. Then, with the expression of someone cradling a beloved stuffed animal, he wrapped both arms around it and gently rocked, as if soothing it.
To hold something — whatever the object — is, by its nature, an inward gesture. When you close your arms around something and draw it to your chest, you’re also closing them around your own chest, your own core. It’s an act of tenderness toward the object, and at the same time, an act of steadying yourself, of turning toward your own interior.
Holding the trophy, Zverev may also have been holding himself. The outward performance of joy had run its course; what followed was a moment meant for no one but him. It read like someone using his own arms to finally confirm a reality his mind hadn’t yet caught up to. Joy performed for an audience, and reassurance sought for himself — both were quietly present in those same seconds.
Absorbing the Headwind, and Drawing It In
Looked at through a business or leadership lens, what’s most worth noting in this speech isn’t the display of joy itself. It’s how he absorbed the resistance aimed at him — and, without pushing back, gently drew it over to his side.
That resistance wasn’t confined to the court. Right after the ceremony, ESPN closed its broadcast with a remark from tennis legend John McEnroe.
Even with Zverev having just won, McEnroe directed a comment at Alcaraz and Sinner — the tournament’s presumed favorites, both sidelined by injury or early losses — to the effect of “get healthy and come back soon.” Many viewers, and other commentators, read it as implying the “real” top two hadn’t returned yet, and McEnroe drew sharp criticism for it. It was a moment when, right as he should have been the one being celebrated, that spotlight was quietly pulled away from him.
It was into that atmosphere that Zverev delivered his remarks. He gave his opponent — Shelton, the hometown American star — unreserved praise, readily naming him as the future of the sport.
And toward the crowd, he openly admitted that the room hadn’t been on his side — without losing his composure, he absorbed that mood and gently drew it back toward himself.
Watch the footage again: he was still wearing the same pale pink Adidas shirt from the final, with deep maroon shorts and matching socks — neither stark white nor black, but a soft tone that set off his own skin, hair, and eye color.
Pink is said to carry a calming psychological effect, easing muscle tension and quietly lowering the viewer’s own guard as well. In a hostile arena, with most of the crowd behind Shelton and even the broadcast devoting airtime to absent favorites, that pale pink likely helped him convey his joy gently and at his own pace, without overstimulating the room. The same posture showed through not only in his words, but in the very color he chose to wear.
What’s more, Zverev understands that he isn’t a hero everyone loves unconditionally — that he’s faced scrutiny and criticism more than once. And yet what he chose to share that day wasn’t self-promotion or self-defense, but the effort it took to get there, and gratitude for the people who’d carried him. Choosing humility and composure over display gave his words real weight.
It’s a structure worthy of a textbook crisis-response speech: rather than denying or ignoring the resistance and criticism, absorb it first — and only then, through effort and grace, shift the mood in the room.
In business terms, it’s precisely what’s asked of a leader facing adversity or criticism: to speak from the podium with sincerity, to elevate others rather than oneself — which is, in the end, how a brand’s standing and trust get rebuilt.
The discussion continues in Part Two.
This article is part of Insights by Niena Etsuko Hino, a collection of selected English articles and translations exploring branding, executive presence, and cross-cultural business strategy.