Shelton Outlasts Hurkacz in Marathon to Reach US Open Third Round

Ben Shelton needed three hours and 24 minutes, four sets and every reserve of the crowd noise inside Arthur Ashe Stadium to get past Hubert Hurkacz on Wednesday night, but the eighth-seeded American is through to the third round of the U.S. Open at the tournament he considers his best shot at a first Grand Slam title.

Shelton won 6-3, 5-7, 7-6(3), 7-5 in a match that swung on a single third-set tiebreak, outlasting an unseeded but dangerous opponent who had nothing left to lose. It was the first career meeting between the two big servers, and it did not go the way the lopsided opening set suggested it would.

The numbers

Shelton took the first set in just 32 minutes, riding his first serve to a quick lead. Hurkacz answered by claiming the second set 7-5, and the third set tightened into a stalemate: neither man was broken, and the two players finished within a point of each other in winners before Shelton closed out the tiebreak with an overhead smash. He then held his nerve in the fourth to seal it, 7-5. It was Shelton's second four-set survival in as many rounds; he opened his tournament by dropping the first set to Tallon Griekspoor before rallying to win in four, 1-6, 6-1, 7-6(3), 6-2.

Shelton will next face the winner of Wednesday's other second-round match between Denis Shapovalov and Luca Van Assche, which Shapovalov took 6-0, 6-4, 7-6(7).

How the draw got here

The men's field Shelton is navigating looks nothing like the one drawn up in late August. Top-ranked Jannik Sinner withdrew before the tournament began, citing a right knee injury that had already forced him out of two summer hardcourt events. Days later, Novak Djokovic was eliminated in the first round for the first time in two decades, falling in five sets to Argentina's Mariano Navone and ending a run of 78 consecutive Grand Slam opening-round wins. Between the two results, two of the three men who have dominated the sport for the better part of a decade were gone from the draw before the second week, leaving an opening that a deep American contingent has been pushing into.

Djokovic's exit carries its own historical weight beyond the draw. Because he was defending points from a semifinal run a year ago, the loss is set to drop him out of the ATP top 10 when rankings update later this month for the first time since July 2018 — and, more strikingly, will leave the top 10 without Djokovic, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal for the first time since October 2002, closing out a run of nearly a quarter-century in which at least one member of the sport's "Big Three" occupied elite company.

Hurkacz, for his part, arrived unseeded after a season in which his ranking slid outside the top 70, a steep fall for a player who reached the Wimbledon semifinals in 2021 and was long regarded as one of the tour's most reliable servers. He gave Shelton little room to relax, particularly once the match reached its second hour.

Who is affected

Shelton entered New York carrying his own recent scar tissue. He was upset in the first round at Wimbledon this year by Finnish qualifier Otto Virtanen, an outcome that stunned a player who had been the tournament's top-ranked American. He rebuilt from there, winning titles at the Dallas Open and the BMW Open in Munich over the summer, and arrives at his home Slam as the No. 8 seed and the top-ranked American man in the draw.

He is not the only one making a push. Frances Tiafoe also advanced Wednesday, beating Rei Sakamoto in straight sets to reach the third round, extending an American men's presence at the tournament that is chasing a title drought dating to Andy Roddick's win in 2003 — the last time a U.S. man lifted the trophy at Flushing Meadows. Tommy Paul and Daniil Medvedev also won their second-round matches Wednesday, keeping a crowded group of contenders alive heading into the second week.

Shelton, born in Atlanta and coached by his father, former college coach Bryan Shelton, has built his brief career around exactly this kind of stage. He reached the semifinals in New York in 2023 in just his second appearance at the tournament and made the semifinals of the Australian Open in 2025, but a Grand Slam title has so far eluded him. Wednesday's win keeps alive his bid to go further than last year's fourth-round finish, played through the second half with a shoulder injury that ultimately ended his run.

Shelton was candid afterward about how much the match had tested him, crediting Hurkacz for forcing him to play through adversity rather than simply serve his way past a lesser opponent.

"He was serving lights out, moving well, not making errors from the baseline, and it was a tall task," Shelton said of Hurkacz after the match.

Shelton added that the grind carried its own value looking ahead to the rounds still to come, telling reporters that the match's swings would serve him well: "Being battle tested is great — credit to him, and the level that he started to bring." He said the momentum "was fully in my control to up in the air" during the middle sets, an acknowledgment of how close the outcome had been.

What happens next

Shelton's third-round assignment, against either Shapovalov or Van Assche, is scheduled for later in the week at Flushing Meadows. Shapovalov, a former world No. 10 who reached the Wimbledon semifinals in 2021, would present a livelier danger than the unseeded Van Assche if he holds his straight-set form. A win for Shelton would put him into the second week for the third time in four years at this tournament, following a semifinal run in 2023 and a fourth-round finish a year ago. With Sinner out and the draw already reshaped by Djokovic's exit, the section of the bracket in front of Shelton looks more open than it has in years — though Hurkacz's resistance on Wednesday was a reminder that nothing at a major is decided by seeding alone.