Tiafoe Erases Two-Set Deficit to Reach Third US Open Semifinal

Frances Tiafoe rallied from two sets down and a break down in the fifth to beat fellow American Alex Michelsen 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6(10-6) in the men's singles quarterfinals at the US Open on Tuesday night, completing the biggest comeback of his career to reach his third semifinal at his home Grand Slam. The match, played on Arthur Ashe Stadium, ran four hours and 38 minutes before Tiafoe closed it out in a final-set tiebreak that Michelsen had led before double-faulting away his chance to serve out the match two sets earlier.

Tiafoe, the No. 11 seed, had never won a major match after losing the first two sets, going 0-4 at the US Open and 2-17 across his career in that position. Michelsen, unseeded and ranked 46th in the world, had not dropped a set all tournament and served for the match at 5-3 in the third when he opened the game with back-to-back double faults. Tiafoe broke twice more to close the set, took the fourth in straight sets, then erased an early break in the fifth before winning the deciding tiebreak 10-6. The result pushes Tiafoe to a projected career-high ranking of No. 8 next week; Michelsen, despite the loss, moves up to No. 33.

• Score: Tiafoe def. Michelsen 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6(10-6)
• Duration: 4 hours, 38 minutes on Arthur Ashe Stadium
• Tiafoe's record trailing 0-2 in sets at majors before Tuesday: 2-17 (0-4 at the US Open)
• Sets Michelsen had dropped all tournament before the fifth set: zero
• New projected rankings: Tiafoe to a career-high No. 8, Michelsen up to No. 33

A lead that kept slipping away

For three sets, the match looked like a coronation for Michelsen, a 22-year-old Californian playing in his first Grand Slam quarterfinal. He broke Tiafoe's shaky first serve — under 40 percent through the first three sets — repeatedly, took the first set 7-5 and the second 6-3, and was a game from a straight-sets upset when the double faults arrived. According to the match recap from ESPN, that lapse was the hinge of the entire afternoon: Tiafoe broke twice in a row to steal the third set, carried the momentum through the fourth, and survived Michelsen's own fifth-set surge to force the breaker. It was the first time a man had come back from two sets down to win a US Open quarterfinal since Roger Federer did it against Gael Monfils in 2014, and only the second time a man has won a major quarterfinal in a deciding-set tiebreak after trailing two sets to love, after Andre Agassi's win at the same tournament in 2005, a detail confirmed independently by CBS Sports' account of the match.

The win extended a hot stretch for Tiafoe at this tournament. Two rounds earlier he had beaten Daniil Medvedev in three tiebreak-heavy sets for his first win over the Russian in a completed match after six previous losses, a result the ATP Tour's own recap noted was also his tour-leading 25th hard-court victory of the season. Before that, he needed five sets just to survive his first-round match against fellow American Martin Damm, a contest that ran past midnight. Three of Tiafoe's last four matches at this year's Open have gone the distance.

An American drought, and a crowded quarterfinal round

The context that has followed Tiafoe through this tournament is the same one that has followed American men's tennis for two decades: no man from the United States has won the US Open since Andy Roddick in 2003, and none has won any Grand Slam singles title in that stretch. This year's draw briefly interrupted that narrative of absence. Six Americans, across the men's and women's draws, reached the quarterfinals, the most since 2002, with Tiafoe, Michelsen and eighth seed Ben Shelton all in the men's final eight — a depth of contention the U.S. Tennis Association's own tournament coverage flagged before the round began, when it previewed Tiafoe and Michelsen's all-American matchup as a marker of how far the current generation has come. Michelsen, competing in just his 13th major main draw and never previously past the second round in New York, had been the form player of that trio through the first week — a notable turn for a player who came into the tournament with a modest 18-14 record on tour this season and a ranking that had slipped to 46th after reaching a career-high No. 30 the previous summer. Tuesday's quarterfinal, before the collapse, was shaping up as easily his best result of 2026.

Losing this way was always going to be hardest on Michelsen, who had built a two-set lead against an opponent 27 places above him in the rankings and a decade further into his career, only to watch it evaporate over roughly ninety minutes of tennis. He walked to the net in tears. Tiafoe, rather than celebrating alone, held him there for an extended embrace before either player left the court, an exchange widely shown across tournament and network broadcasts and described in detail by Yahoo Sports' report on the aftermath. Also affected: the tournament's broadcast schedule, which saw the match run deep into the evening session and push the following order of play into the night.

What players said afterward

Tiafoe was direct about how he had approached the closing stages after squandering the early lead in the match and, later, in the fifth set.

"You're going to win some; you're going to lose some. I wasn't thinking about that. I was just thinking about trying to be in the moment," Tiafoe said.

He was warmer discussing his opponent afterward, praising Michelsen's level throughout and acknowledging how close the loss had come to going the other way. Michelsen, for his part, said Tiafoe had used the moment at the net to offer him some perspective about his own career, telling him he would have more chances at majors as he gets older. It was a small gesture that drew notice across outlets covering the match, including a detailed writeup on the exchange from NBC Sports.

What happens next

Tiafoe advances to face the winner of Tuesday night's late quarterfinal between defending champion and No. 2 seed Carlos Alcaraz and No. 8 seed Ben Shelton, a match scheduled to finish well after the Tiafoe-Michelsen marathon ended. The semifinal is set for Friday, September 11, at Arthur Ashe Stadium. It will be Tiafoe's third US Open semifinal in five years, following runs in 2022 and 2024 that both ended in five-set losses — to Alcaraz in 2022 and to Taylor Fritz, who went on to lose the 2024 final to Jannik Sinner. A win over either Alcaraz or Shelton would put Tiafoe in his first Grand Slam final, and would keep alive, at least for a few more days, the loudest American men's push at this tournament since Roddick's title run more than two decades ago. For Michelsen, the immediate task is smaller: a jump of thirteen spots in the rankings, a first career quarterfinal at a major to build from, and, on the evidence of Tuesday night, a level of tennis that had a far more experienced opponent two points from elimination in prime time on the tour's biggest stage. Whichever of Alcaraz or Shelton wins Tuesday's late match inherits a similar problem: an opponent who has now spent close to eleven hours on court across his last three matches and shown no sign of tiring in the moments that decide them.