Frances Tiafoe took the American revenge match against Ben Shelton. (Photo / Seth Wenig)
(Associated Press)
While the US Open continued on Friday, Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe clashed in a long -awaited third round match. The All-American well-matching competition ended with Tiafoe Victorious 4-6, 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-3 after five fascinating sets.
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Tiafoe will pass in his fifth consecutive round from 16 to Flushing Meadows, where he will face Alexei Popyrin, which upset the No. 2 Novak Djokovic later Friday.
Tiafoe and Shelton were well matched from the start, with Shelton, who pierced with a victory over Tiafoe last year, winning the first set with a 6-4 victory. In the second, Shelton took an early advance, but Tiafoe came from 5-4 to win the 7-5 set.
The third set was incredibly uniform, the players exchanging breaks on their way to an equality break, while playing high level tennis.
The equality break was more dramatic, as they are often. Shelton took an advance of 6-0, but Tiafoe responded by holding five consecutive points, largely of Shelton's errors. He finished a short point, because Shelton struck an ace with a service of 143 mi / h to close the set and take a 2-1 match advance.
Tiafoe took the lead at the start of the fourth set, increasing 3-2, but Shelton won the next match and brought things back to 3-3. The two exchanged a match each, before Tiafoe took an undisputed game to lead 5-4. In the decisive game, Tiafoe took advantage of some key errors from Shelton to win the 6-4 set.
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Tiafoe broke Shelton at the start of the fifth set, and the younger player seemed to be too grassy to set up another return. A number of high -effort sets have caught up with it, while Tiafoe looked inflatable like never before.
The two Americans played their strengths well, with Shelton serving his usual staging while Tiafoe had excellent well -placed shots on the line. Tiafoe also took advantage of Shelton's errors, while Shelton, 21, ended the match with 58 uncompvious mistakes against 27 of Tiafoe.
Shelton's strength was rather in his service, with 23 AS and many more winners from Tiafoe.
Shelton against Tiafoe has become something of a rivalry in the past year. Friday's shock was a revenge match of the US Open last year, when a 20-year-old Shelton beat Tiafoe in four sets to move forward in the semi-finals and celebrated, pretending to hang up the phone. Shelton went to lose against Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals. In particular, Tiafoe will avoid Djokovic this time and will rather face Australian popyrine.
Friday's matches were good for the Americans, starting with Coco Gauff Defeat Elina Svitolina in three after abandoning the first set. GAUFF will now face his American colleague Emma Navarro in the fourth round this weekend.
