Ben Shelton Shocks Alcaraz to Reach US Open Semi-Finals

Ben Shelton detonated the moment his career had been waiting for, ripping through the New York night and the defending champion to reach the US Open semi-finals in a match that felt like it might never end.

He took down Carlos Alcaraz, the man who usually bends chaos to his will, 6-7 (5-7) 6-1 6-1 1-6 7-6 (10-7) in four hours and 28 minutes of wild, swaying drama on Arthur Ashe Stadium. When it finally ended at 3.33am, the stands were still full, still loud, and watching the biggest win of Shelton’s life.

Shelton topples the champion

Shelton walked on court 0-17 in his career against top-three opponents. He walked off having handed Alcaraz his exit and punched his own ticket to a third Grand Slam semi-final.

The start belonged to Alcaraz. The Spaniard edged a tight opening set in a tie-break, soaking up Shelton’s first surge of power and noise. It felt familiar: the champion steady, the challenger swinging hard but falling just short.

Then the match flipped.

Shelton tore through nine straight games, savaging the second and third sets 6-1, 6-1. His lefty serve exploded through the cool night air, his forehand rushed Alcaraz into errors, and suddenly the defending champion looked the one scrambling for solutions. Arthur Ashe, sensing something rare, roared with every Shelton winner, every clenched fist, every “USA” chant echoing into the early hours.

Alcaraz, though, does not go quietly. He reset, tightened his game and stormed through the fourth set 6-1, dragging the contest into a decider. The physical toll was clear. Playing his first tournament since April after more than four months out with a wrist injury, the seven-time major champion had already pushed his body deep into the red. Before the final set, he was seen vomiting, yet he still found a way to drag the match all the way to a 10-point tie-break.

Even there, Alcaraz looked ready to steal it. He surged to four straight points and a 5-3 lead, the kind of moment he usually turns into a chokehold.

Shelton refused to fold.

He clawed back, swung freely again, and when the chance came, he finished it the only way he knows how. Match point: a 146mph cannon down the T that Alcaraz could only flail at. The ball flew long, and the stadium detonated.

Shelton lifted his arms to a crowd that had stayed with him until 3am and beyond.

“For me it's always about the people in the crowd, whether it's my coaches, team or friends and family, or the city of New York that showed up tonight until 3am with the USA chants, that's what kept me going and what got me this win,” he said on court. He called it “the greatest sports city and greatest stadium in the world,” and joked that he hoped his best friend and sister didn’t have to be at work at 6am.

Sharing the court with Alcaraz, he added, was “an absolute honour.” On this night, he did a lot more than share it.

The win guarantees an American man in Sunday’s US Open final for the first time in over two decades. Andy Roddick, back in 2003, remains the last US man to win a major. Shelton now carries that weight into a semi-final against a friend and compatriot who survived his own five-set storm.

Tiafoe rides the rollercoaster

Earlier in the evening, before Shelton and Alcaraz dragged New York into the small hours, Frances Tiafoe staged a comeback that veered from flat to frantic to unforgettable.

Down two sets and trailing 0-3 in the fifth, Tiafoe somehow clawed his way past fellow American Alex Michelsen 5-7 3-6 7-5 6-3 7-6 (10-6) to reach the US Open semi-finals for a third time.

For two sets, the 11th seed looked lost. The easy swagger that had carried him through the early rounds vanished. Michelsen, 22 and playing the deepest major run of his young career, hammered 21 aces and kept his nerve in the big moments. The upset felt inevitable.

The turning point came late in the third. At 4-5 down, Tiafoe admitted his thoughts were simple: “I hope he gets tight.” Michelsen did blink, throwing in a couple of double faults. Tiafoe pounced, “snuck out the third set” and, as he put it, “slowly started playing better and better.”

The pressure finally told. Tiafoe rode that crack in the door, took the fourth set 6-3, and forced a decider that swung violently in Michelsen’s favour again. When the younger American raced to a 3-0 lead in the fifth, the match looked gone for a second time.

Tiafoe refused to go away. Point by point, he dragged himself back into it, leaning on his athleticism and the crowd’s rising energy. The final-set tie-break became a test of nerve. This time, it was Tiafoe who held firm, closing it out 10-6.

He didn’t celebrate for long. As Michelsen broke down in tears, Tiafoe went straight to him at the net, offering an embrace on what had been both a breakthrough and a brutal night.

“He is a hell of a player. He should've easily won today, so shout out Alex Michelsen,” Tiafoe said afterwards, fully aware of how close he had come to going home.

The numbers around Tiafoe’s run are starting to carry serious weight. He joins Andre Agassi as the only American men this century to reach three US Open semi-finals. The win also secures his return to the top 10 for the first time in three years.

“Everyone was sleeping in the first couple of hours and I was asleep with you all,” he joked, acknowledging his sluggish start. The energy, though, built with him. By the end, Arthur Ashe was at full volume again.

From the commentary box, Laura Robson captured the cruelty of Michelsen’s loss. “You can't help but feel sorry for Alex Michelsen considering how close he was,” she said. “The tears started coming from Michelsen. It was like a punch in the gut for me and I don't even know him.” Having been in those positions herself, she called it “the worst feeling,” knowing “you kind of did choke a little bit,” before tipping her cap to Tiafoe for turning the match around.

An all-American collision course

So New York gets what it craves: an all-American semi-final on its biggest stage.

Shelton, the 23-year-old thunderbolt who has now made the last four at the 2023 US Open, the 2025 Australian Open and again here. Tiafoe, the showman who keeps finding a way back into this late-September spotlight and back into the game’s elite.

One of them will walk into Sunday as the first American man since Roddick to contest a major final.

The other will walk away knowing just how close this window is, and how quickly it can slam shut.