At 3:33 a.m. on Sept. 9, American Ben Shelton blew one more ace past Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz. While it was Shelton’s seventh ace of the night, this one was special.
The 146-mph serve sealed Shelton’s upset in an up-and-down match against Alcaraz, the U.S. Open reigning champion, who is widely considered one of the best players of his generation. Shelton has only reached the semi-finals of this tournament once before, which resulted in a straight sets loss to Novak Djokovic.
From the outset of the match, Shelton meant business. In his three previous outings against Alcaraz, the American struggled to hang on in elongated rallies from the baseline, and lost each match. The Spaniard found particular success picking on Shelton’s backhand, by far the weakest shot in his arsenal.
This time, however, Shelton was more than ready to go stroke for stroke with his opponent. Against the hard hitting Alcaraz, Shelton put up excellent stats, with just one less point-winning shot than unforced error. In comparison, Alcaraz’s unforced errors outnumbered his winners by 15.
However, it was not all easy going for Shelton. Down 6-5 in the opening set, he brilliantly navigated his way through an Alcaraz service game to level the set at 6-6. His success forced a tiebreaker, a first-to-seven-points sprint played in sets knotted at 6-6. Despite an early 4-2 lead Shelton was unable to convert as Alcaraz used his explosive speed and huge forehands to take the set.
What distinguished the Shelton of this match from the Shelton of the past was his mental toughness. In previous meetings with Alcaraz, a close first set loss deflated Shelton and led to a meek defeat in the following sets. The same was not true in this match.
Shleton secured three breaks of serve in the second set, winning games that Alcaraz, as the server, was expected to hold. He is the first player to accomplish that feat against Alcaraz this year. This momentum carried Shelton through the next two sets, where he won 12 of the 16 games to go ahead 2-1 in the best-of-five-sets match.
Alcaraz was prepared to put up a difficult fight against upstart Shelton. He surged in the fourth set, winning 6-1, and took an early lead in the match tiebreak at the end of the fifth.
Nevertheless, Shelton was able to wait out this effort and hold on where he previously would have been overwhelmed to win in the final set tiebreak, and the match, 3-2.
Shelton will not have much time to rest, as his fellow Frances Tiafoe American booked his place opposite him in the semi-final with a similarly dramatic result, coming from behind to outlast countryman Alex Michaelson 3-2. Tiafoe celebrated with the elated Arthur Ashe stadium crowd, before consoling a distraught Michaelson in a moving scene at midcourt.
Tiafoe’s form has been impeccable of late, bringing him to the finals of the Cincinnati Open, the final lead-up tournament to the US Open, which is used to gauge potential US Open runners and riders.
Tiafoe has spoken of the urgency he feels to secure the big professional tennis titles which have eluded him thus far.
Early this year, he admitted to the Athletic he felt “underwater and in the back nine of my career” following a dismal 2025 campaign in which he sacked his coach and shut down his season a month early. So far, this year has proved to be the answer he has been looking for.
He will finish the tournament ranked at least at number eight in the world, a career high.
For both men, the semi-final represents an unbelievable opportunity: they are just two matches away from potentially winning their first Grand Slam title, tennis’s term for the four most prestigious tournament championships.
In a sport which as of late has been dominated by Jannik Sinner and Alacaraz, this represents a rare tournament where both are absent from the final four.
Lest we forget, it has been a twenty-three-year drought for American men at the US Open, with the last victory captured by Andy Roddick in 2003. Both Shelton and Tiafoe will be savoring the chance to break that streak when they clash on Arthur Ashe court on Friday at 7pm.
