HISTORIC ACHIEVEMENT FOR MARIJANA VELJOVIĆ: First Serbian woman to officiate a men’s US Open final and complete all four Grand Slams!

Serbian gold-badge ITF chair umpire Marijana Veljović wrote another page in tennis history after taking the chair for the men’s US Open final between Alexander Zverev and Ben Shelton.

For the 39-year-old from Kragujevac, this was the first men’s Grand Slam final of her career. Previously, Novak Đoković had “prevented” her from achieving this, or rather, the fact that her compatriot had regularly reached the very final stages and fought for trophies at the biggest tournaments for more than a decade and a half.

With this match, Veljović completed an already impressive résumé. She had previously officiated the women’s singles finals at all four Grand Slams (Australian Open in 2018 and 2022, Wimbledon in 2019, Roland Garros in 2025, and the US Open in 2021 and 2025), as well as the Fed Cup finals in 2019 and 2021, and the women’s singles gold-medal match at the Tokyo Olympics.

However, the historic final in New York did not go smoothly, and Marijana once again demonstrated her trademark steely authority.

At one point in the match, Zverev was taking too long to serve, prompting the Serbian chair umpire to intervene from the chair and issue him a time violation for exceeding the 25-second limit. The German tennis player did not want to accept the penalty easily, so he approached the chair intending to argue.

Marijana immediately made it clear that there would be no discussion — she raised her index finger and sternly instructed him to move away and continue the match. Zverev returned to the baseline without a word, and play soon resumed, with the German eventually going on to claim both victory and the championship trophy.