Ben Shelton is still just 20, still new to this whole professional tennis thing. He is equipped with a tremendously good serve, but don’t think he can’t come through in other ways when it matters the most.
On a muggy night in which, yes, he hit 14 aces but also hit 11 double-faults, Shelton used one blink-and-you-missed-it booming return to save a set point in the pivotal tiebreaker and reached his first Grand Slam semifinal by edging Frances Tiafoe 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (7), 6-2 at the U.S. Open in a back-and-forth contest filled with huge hitting by both.
“Sometimes you’ve got to shut off the brain, close your eyes and just swing,” Shelton said about his forehand return winner off an 83 mph second serve that prevented Tiafoe from taking a two-sets-to-one lead. “Some may say ‘clutch,’ but I don’t know about all that.”