As the US Open continued on Friday, Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe faced off in a highly anticipated third round match. The evenly matched All-American match ended with Tiafoe winning 4-6, 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-3 after five thrilling sets.
Tiafoe will face Novak Djokovic for the fifth time in a row in Flushing Meadows.
The two were evenly matched from the start, with Shelton, who broke through last year with a win over Tiafoe, taking the first set with a 6-4 victory. In the second set, Shelton took an early lead, but Tiafoe came back from a 5-4 deficit to win the set 7-5.
The third set was very evenly matched, with each player giving one break en route to the tiebreak. High level tennis was also played.
The tiebreaker was more dramatic, as is often the case. Shelton jumped to a 6-0 lead, but Tiafoe responded by holding off five straight set points, largely due to Shelton’s mistakes. Unfortunately, he came up one set point short, as Shelton, taking it personally, hit an ace with a 143 mph serve to close out the set and take a 2-1 lead.
After another exciting start, Tiafoe took his first lead of the match, 3-2, but Shelton won the next game to bring the score back to 3-3. The two traded a game each, before Tiafoe won a game uncontested to lead 5-4. In the deciding game, Tiafoe took advantage of some key errors from Shelton to take the set 6-4.
Tiafoe broke Shelton early in the fifth set, and the younger player simply looked too exhausted to make a comeback. A series of hard-fought sets caught up with him, with Tiafoe looking as resilient as ever.
Both Americans played well to their strengths, with Shelton showing his usual showmanship while Tiafoe had some excellent, well-placed shots down the line. Tiafoe also benefited from Shelton’s mistakes, as the 21-year-old Shelton finished the match with 58 unforced errors to Tiafoe’s 27.
Shelton’s strength, however, was his serve, with 23 aces and many more winners thanks to Tiafoe’s returns.
Shelton and Tiafoe have become somewhat of a rival over the past year. Friday’s match was a rematch of last year’s US Open, when the then 20-year-old Shelton defeated Tiafoe in four sets to reach the semifinals and celebrated by pretending to hang up the phone. Shelton lost in the semifinals to Novak Djokovic. Tiafoe will face Djokovic in the next round if Djokovic defeats Australia’s Alexei Popyrin later on Friday.
Friday’s matchups were good for the Americans, starting with Coco Gauff who defeated Elina Svitolina in three after losing the first set. Gauff will now face compatriot Emma Navarro in the fourth round this weekend.
