US Open: Ben Shelton continues shock run into semifinals as he downs fellow American Frances Tiafoe to set up test vs. Novak Djokovic

For a moment, it seemed that Ben Shelton’s greatest strength could be his downfall.

The young American, who reached service speeds of up to 230 km/h in his last game, fired twelve aces on Tuesday evening and constantly confused Frances Tiafoe with his power.

But he just couldn’t hold onto his serves over the course of two crucial tiebreak points in the third set as two consecutive double faults turned a 6-5 lead into a 7-6 hole.

But not for the only time that night, the 20-year-old found a way to pull himself out of the closet, propelling himself to a tiebreaker victory and an eventual 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-2 victory.

It had been fifteen years since two black American men faced each other at Arthur Ashe Stadium before Tiafoe and Shelton took center stage on Tuesday.

The last time such a match took place, a 28-year-old James Blake outlived 19-year-old Donald Young in five sets, and this time there was a similar – if slightly less pronounced – gap in experience.

Twenty-year-old Shelton has been active on the ATP Tour for less than a year, while 25-year-old Tiafoe turned pro in 2015.

But on Tuesday, it was Shelton who looked like the veteran in what felt like an important night for American tennis.

There have been distractions and misbehavior from fans at other games this tournament, but not on this soup night in Queens, when a crowd including Anna Wintour, Emma Watson and rapper Meek Mill seemed to fully grasp the magnitude of this gathering.

The stakes weren’t lost for the players either, as Tiafoe nervously committed two double faults in the first game before recovering in a deuce to hold serve.

The next three games would follow that script as the players continued to hold their serve, with Shelton’s cannon reaching 140 mph to force an error from Tiafoe in a deuce to even tie the set at 2-2 to put.

Then came the breakthrough.

Tiafoe initially escaped two break points in the next game, taking the world number one. 10, which equates to 10 unforced errors in half as many games.

But after one of several drop shots in the game came off and forced a second break point, Tiafoe was unable to recover from a third break attempt.

The irritable Shelton let out a scream, his box was celebrating the University of Florida’s signature “gator chomp” party (he played there for two years), and the Atlanta native was on his way to a first-set victory.

Tiafoe struggled to match his opponent’s staggering strength, but the newcomer also showed deceit.

A subtly hit backhand winner who took a 15-30 lead in the seventh game showed a player mastering his tools in real time and helped push his lead to 5-2 with another break.

He served for the set in the next game.

Things almost spiraled out of control again for Tiafoe early in the next set, as he escaped a break at 1–1 to hold onto serve and regain the lead.

Shelton’s strong serve had left his opponent little room for error so far, and it fell to his ‘brother’ Tiafoe, as he called him earlier in the week, to strike back.

He did so with the set at 3-2, forcing a serving Shelton into his sloppy game of the night, surviving another break point in the next game to take a comfortable 5-2 lead.

Two games later, it was Tiafoe’s turn to celebrate, as he fired an ace to take a 6-3 set win.

He nodded his head repeatedly as the crowd showed its appreciation for the 2022 semi-finalist.

But if both players were feasting on the Ashe crowd, it was Shelton who seemed better fed for the rest of the game.

There was no Shelton counterpart to the cries of “Let’s go ‘Foe,” but audiences appreciated the underdog’s moments, and he ended up producing more of them than his eldest.

While the first set was about Shelton’s strength, the third was defined by his resilience as he and Tiafoe broke each other three times in a truly shaky period of play.

Tiafoe hit a beautiful backhand winner on the cross court to make it 15-30 in the first game of the set – arguably his best shot of the night – but it was ultimately no sign of things to come, despite the fact that the set a break started.

Shelton immediately responded the next game with a break – and a highlight cross-court winner – to regain control of the set and eventually take a 3-1 lead after breaking his opponent again.

After two more breaks from Tiafoe and another reply from Shelton, the last four games saw each player serve twice, with one turn in particular showing young Shelton’s fearlessness.

At 4-4, Shelton found himself staring at a deuce after two straight double faults. He also missed a fifth serve in a row on the next point, but had the guts to fire off a second serve at 190 km/h to create a winner and give himself a narrow 5–4 lead.

What followed shortly after was an epic upside-down tiebreak in which Shelton finally kept his nerve despite some major wobbles.

The first Slam semi-finalist fired two aces in a row to open a 3-2 lead, before going up 6-5 with a chance to serve for the set.

But he double-faulted his next two points, leaving Tiafoe in the driver’s seat before firing off a cathartic winner to even things out.

He won the set two points later and did not look back in the fifth set.