America’s hopes of ending their 22-year men’s drought received a double blow on Saturday morning AEST as Ben Shelton retired through injury, while Frances Tiafoe crashed out in straights sets in the third round of the US Open in New York.
A shoulder injury scuppered sixth seed Shelton’s hopes of becoming the first American man to win the US Open since Andy Roddick in 2003.
The big-serving Shelton, a semi-finalist at Flushing Meadows in 2023, departed the Louis Armstrong Stadium court in tears after being forced to retire at the end of the fourth set of his match against French veteran Adrian Mannarino.
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Shelton, 22, was leading 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 but clutched his shoulder in pain early in the fourth set and called a medical timeout.
He recovered but retired after Mannarino took the fourth set.
“I’m not a guy who would retire if I could continue,” said a dejected Shelton, who fought back tears as he walked off the court with a towel draped over his head.
He described the pain level as “really high” and was at a loss to explain its origin. “I can’t pinpoint it. Didn’t go in with an injury,” he said.
“It hurts. I was playing really well, I was in form, a lot of confidence.”
“Usually I’ll play through anything and just kind of find a way. And whether it’s sickness or injury, like, if I can stay out there, I can stay out there. I never felt anything like this before,” he added.
It was the first time in his 178 career matches that Shelton has been forced to pull the pin, and comes as a disappointing end to the final grand slam of a career-best season, that has included a Canadian Open crown earlier this month and a semi-final appearance at Melbourne Park.
“When he started to have pain he was leading in the match, he honestly probably would have won that match,” said the 37-year-old Mannarino.
“It’s very unfortunate for him and lucky for me.”
A few hours later, Tiafoe, a US Open semi-finalist twice in the past three years, crashed out in straight sets to Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff.
Struff came through the qualifiers to reach the main draw and continued to upset the odds, taking out 17th seed Tiafoe 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (9/7) to make the last 16 in New York for the first time.
“It’s going to be hard to swallow how I played today and being out of the US Open, for sure, this early,” rued Tiafoe.
“I don’t know how to recover from this, to be honest with you. I haven’t been this down in a very, very long time.”
The loss of Shelton and Tiafoe leaves just two Americans in the men’s draw, 2024 runner-up Taylor Fritz and 14th seed Tommy Paul.
The 35-year-old Struff defeated Danish 11th seed Holger Rune in the previous round and will face 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic for a spot in the quarter-finals.
The German had not won a match at Flushing Meadows before this tournament since reaching the third round in 2020.
When asked if his five-year-old son would be watching from home during his on course interview, Struff replied with a laugh: “It’s midnight in Germany, so hopefully he’s not watching. He has school tomorrow.
“It’s amazing that I can be here. For sure I miss my family,” he continued.
“I wanna also say a special happy birthday to my father. It’s his birthday today.”
Tiafoe’s exit was his earliest at the US Open since a second-round loss in 2019.
Earlier, Spanish second seed Alcaraz breezed past Italian 32nd seed Luciano Darderi in emphatic fashion, winning 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 on the Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Alcaraz’s one hour 44-minute victory sends the 2022 US Open champion into a meeting on Sunday against France’s Arthur Rinderknech, who defeated compatriot Benjamin Bonzi 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2.
Alcaraz is aiming to finish the season on a high after winning the French Open in June before losing in the final of Wimbledon last month.
The five-time Grand Slam singles champion opened play on the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center’s main court, and admitted he had been nervous about his 11:30am local time start.
“I’m not an early morning person so it’s difficult for me to wake up in the morning,” Alcaraz said. “One of the good things today though I woke up early, did the warm up and felt good.
“Starting at 11:30 my first goal is to start well with a good energy and rhythm. I played great tennis, good performance so I’m proud of that.”
Alcaraz needed a medical timeout while leading 5-4 in the second set for treatment on his right knee, but later said he had no injury concerns.
In the night session, 38-year-old Novak Djokovic moved closer to a possible semi-final showdown with Alcaraz with a 6-4, 6-7 (7-4), 6-2, 6-3 victory against Britain’s Cameron Norrie, where he too took a medical timeout.
Djokovic grabbed at his back after he appeared to overextend when making an overhead volley late in the first.
In his on-court interview he joked about how his body his holding up saying “yeah it’s okay”, and later adding “don’t want to give too much away to the rivals who are listening”.
The seventh-seeded Serbian legend is chasing a record 25th Grand Slam singles title in New York, where he has won four times before, and with his defeat of Norrie, Djokovic became the oldest man to reach the final 16 at Flushing Meadows since Jimmy Conners in 1991.
He also broke the record for most grand slam wins on hard courts, as it was his 192nd career triumph at the US and Australian Opens.
In other men’s draw action, Czech 20th seed Jiri Lehecka sailed into the next round with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 defeat of Belgium’s Raphael Collignon.
In the women’s draw, meanwhile, world number one Aryna Sabalenka advanced to the fourth round after extending her remarkable streak of tie-break victories to defeat Canada’s Leylah Fernandez.
Reigning champion Sabalenka punched her ticket to the last 16 after seeing off Fernandez 6-3, 7-6 (7/2) in one hour 39 minutes on the Louis Armstrong Stadium.
Sabalenka’s decisive second set victory was capped by her 18th consecutive tie-break win.
The victory was also sweet revenge for Sabalenka, who suffered an upset defeat to then teenager Fernandez in the semi-finals of the 2021 US Open.
“I wanted this revenge badly,” Sabalenka said afterwards. “It was a tough lesson for me back then. Since then, we never played again.
“I just wanted to prove to myself that the lesson was learned and that I developed as a player and I could get this win.” Sabalenka attributes her dominance of tie-breaks this season to a tougher mental approach.
“I definitely think that mentally I’m pretty strong, and I’m still growing, because I’m learning a lot of lessons, and all of those lessons making me tougher, tougher, and tougher,” she said.
Asked if she believed her opponents were aware of her tie-break record, she replied: “I hope so. I’m not focusing on that during the match, obviously. But extra pressure on my opponents? I love that.” The skilful Fernandez, the 31st seed, had started brightly, earning four break points on Sabalenka’s opening service game of the first set.
Crucially though Sabalenka saved them all before holding, and then took advantage in the fourth game when Fernandez double-faulted to hand the Belarusian a break for a 3-1 lead.
That break was all Sabalenka needed to close out the set.
A tense second set saw Fernandez continue to cause problems for Sabalenka, who again was forced to fight off a break point in the sixth game.
But when the set went to a decisive tie-break, there only ever looked like being one winner, with Sabalenka scoring three mini-breaks in rapid succession to help open up a 4-1 lead.
That soon became 6-1 and Sabalenka sealed a win that sees her into a fourth round showdown with unseeded Spaniard Cristina Bucsa.
Sabalenka is aiming to become the first woman to successfully defend the US Open since Serena Williams won a hat-trick of titles in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Fernandez reached the final of the US Open in 2021, where she was beaten by Britain’s Emma Raducanu — the only player in history ever to win a Grand Slam singles title after emerging through qualifying.
Raducanu’s hopes of another fairytale run in New York came to a juddering halt on Friday when she was steamrolled in straight sets by Kazakh ninth seed Elena Rybakina, losing 6-1, 6-2.
Rybakina will face 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in the fourth round after the Czech ousted Italian seventh seed Jasmine Paolini 7-6 (7/4), 6-1.
In other women’s draw matches, American fourth seed Jessica Pegula comfortably defeated Victoria Azarenka 6-1, 7-5 to reach the fourth round, where she will face compatriot Ann Li after she defeated Australia’s Priscilla Hon in straight sets.
Belgian 19th seed Elise Mertens, a two-time US Open quarter-finalist, meanwhile exited in three sets, upset by Spain’s Cristina Bucsa 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
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