Frances Tiafoe beat Ben Shelton at the U.S. Open, one year after Shelton eliminated Tiafoe, to reach the fourth round for a fifth consecutive year.
Tiafoe, the 20th seed, prevailed over Shelton, the 13th seed, 4-6, 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-3 on Friday. Afterward at the net, the two shared a warm embrace and plenty of words.
“It’s important to show it sometimes that you can be happy for a guy when they beat you,” Shelton said. “I’m a competitor. I always want to win. But I’ve taken a few things from him in the past year. I thought that he’s always handled it well. Maybe not like a big embrace when we’re on the court, but soon or right after, it’s like things are back to normal. But one of those cool environments and matches to be a part of. So it didn’t feel right to just go up with a negative look on my face, shake his hand and walk off the court because he played some great ball today. So I told him, keep serving like that, keep returning like that and see where this thing goes. Obviously, he took me out here. So let’s see what you can do.”
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Tiafoe next plays 28th-seeded Australian Alexei Popyrin on Sunday for a place in the quarterfinals after Popyrin took out 24-time major champion Novak Djokovic later Friday.
Tiafoe is into the second week of the U.S. Open for a fifth consecutive year, the longest streak for an American man since Andre Agassi from 2001-05.
Last year, Shelton upended Tiafoe in the quarterfinals, denying Tiafoe a second consecutive U.S. Open semifinal.
After that, Tiafoe didn’t make it past the third round of a top-level tournament for another 11 months.
After Friday’s match, Tiafoe referenced a comment he made two months ago — that he had been losing to “clowns.”
“Losing last year, (I) struggled for a long time,” he said. “Played really, really bad for a very, very long time, and a lot of things have happened since then. I struggled with a lot of things, motivation-wise and things like that. Kind of take the game for granted and so many other things.
“Obviously, I put myself in the hot seat making that clowns comment. Then you’ve got to back yourself a little bit.”
After taking on new coach David Witt, he broke through at his last event before this year’s U.S. Open, taking runner-up to top-ranked Jannik Sinner at the Cincinnati Masters.
“Popyrin’s playing the best tennis of his life right now,” Tiafoe said in a press conference around the time the Popyrin-Djokovic match began. “Obviously, it’s gonna be tough. I mean, you don’t expect anything easy at this point.”