Early on Wednesday morning, after four hours and 28 minutes of electrifying theatre in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the 23-year-old American ended Carlos Alcaraz’s reign as US Open champion with a thrilling 6-7 (5-7), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7) quarter-final victory in which he elevated his game to new heights. 

Punctuated by a 146mph ace at 3.33am, the finest win of Shelton’s career also marked the tournament’s latest ever finish. 

Shelton has twice before reached a major semi-final, but never by going through a player of Alcaraz’s stature. While it was no surprise to see him match the Spanish second seed for firepower and athleticism, the conviction and composure he showed at the death, when Alcaraz opened up a 5-3 lead in the decisive tiebreak, have not always been apparent against the very best. Likewise the patience, rally tolerance and impressive returning that laid the foundations for the win. It was a night – and early morning – when everything came together for Shelton. 

Ben Shelton hails ‘epic match’ against Carlos Alcaraz

“That was a war, an epic match,” he said of his first success in 18 attempts against a top-three player. “I thought I was smart with how I went about my return games. I thought I made him play a lot. I thought I capitalised when he missed his spot, and didn’t worry or stress too much when he did hit his spot.

“I think for me to be able to hang in there in the rallies, have a game plan from the ground, and be able to execute that game plan and not be losing all the baseline points, also helps with the return.” 

Infamously, no US player has won a major since Andy Roddick triumphed at Flushing Meadows in 2003. Shelton’s victory sets up a meeting with Frances Tiafoe, his fellow countryman and close friend, meaning there is guaranteed to be an American presence in the final. With Alcaraz out and the injured Jannik Sinner absent, the trajectory of American men’s tennis could finally be about to change. 

Yet the wider context will have been the last thing on Shelton’s mind as he completed an unforgettable night’s work with dawn beckoning. In defeating Alcaraz for the first time in four meetings, he became only the second man in 17 attempts to get the better of the Spanish maestro in a fifth set, a distinction he shares with Matteo Berrettini, who achieved the feat at the 2022 Australian Open. 

How Alcaraz was undone after early brilliance

That statistic says everything you need to know about the ability of Alcaraz to meet the moment. But after four and a half months out with a wrist injury, perhaps the real surprise was that he remained in contention so long. The 23-year-old made his way to the last eight without dropping a set, comfortably navigating a potentially tricky opener against the experienced Roman Safiullin and a fourth-round assignment against the 20th-seeded Tommy Paul. In Shelton, however, he faced a challenge of a different order.

That much was apparent from an opener that began with the pair trading heavy blows and ended with an exchange of breaks and mistakes. Alcaraz looked to have seized the advantage when he punished a slight dropoff from Shelton at 5-5, but some wayward hitting off the forehand skewered his hopes of serving out the set. When the American gained the early edge in the ensuing tiebreak, hammering away an overhead to conclude a lung-busting, sinew-stretching rally in which both men explored the full geometry of the court, it seemed he might ride the reprieve all the way to a winning start. Instead, Alcaraz produced a trademark flurry of brilliance, producing two blazing forehand winners to bring up a set point that he converted following another display of acrobatic excellence from both men.

At that point, a familiar narrative looked to be unfolding. But for once, understandably after so long on the sidelines, Alcaraz was unable to sustain the magic. Instead, his form dropped off a cliff. The second set went by in a blizzard of unforced errors. The third was only marginally more competitive. By the fourth, Alcaraz was shooing away a cameraman before vomiting into a towel. The champion looked out on his feet.

Alcaraz ‘happy and proud’ with performance

But whatever his extended break from the game may have cost Alcaraz in terms of fluency and match fitness, his fighting spirit remains very much intact. Having fended off a break point at the start of the fourth set, the Spaniard broke for 2-0 and suddenly looked revitalised. As the clock ticked past 2.20am, he levelled the contest with a love hold. The record for the tournament’s latest finish, set by Alcaraz and Sinner in another five-set classic in the 2022 quarter-finals, was in obvious danger.

So it proved, and while Alcaraz was ultimately unable to prevail over the long haul as he had done on that occasion, it did not prevent him from congratulating Shelton with the broadest of smiles when it was all over. Despite committing 53 unforced errors and losing his grip on the trophy, he had got what he came to New York for: a return to the sport he loves, and confirmation that he is once again healthy. For now, that was enough.

“I’m just not going to be disappointed about not getting the win at the end,” said Alcaraz. “I’m just happy. I’m just proud about myself, about how I fought. After the third set, physically I was really tired. But I found a way to push myself up, and physically give extra.

“I was playing against one of the best. He is a beast. Shelton is an unbelievable player, powerful. He just managed to play really, really well in every situation, so credit to him. I leave the court happy. I leave the court with a smile, healthy, and this is what I needed.” 

What Shelton needed, as the sound of beeping garbage trucks doing their early morning rounds echoed around Arthur Ashe Stadium, was some sleep.

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The words belong to Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones, but the sentiment is one Aryna Sabalenka has owned from the moment she touched down in New York. She has had little option. 

The world No 1 arrived at Flushing Meadows, scene of the two most recent of her four grand slam title wins, still smarting from an unexpected loss to 35th-ranked Sára Bejlek at the Cincinnati Open and the online brickbats that followed. Branded a “showgirl” and accused of being more interested in self-promotion than sport, Sabalenka was accused of allowing social media updates and sponsor activities to interfere with the day job.  

Rightly or wrongly, that perception has been fed by some patchy results over the past five months. On clay, there were defeats from seemingly unassailable positions against Hailey Baptiste in Madrid, Sorana Cirstea in Rome and, most damagingly, Diana Shnaider in Paris. On grass, there was a third-set beatdown from Jessica Pegula in Berlin, and a straight-sets loss to Naomi Osaka in the fourth round of Wimbledon. 

The seasonal switch to hard courts has so far done nothing to arrest the malaise. Ekaterina Alexandrova squared her head-to-head with Sabalenka at five apiece in Toronto, while that 7-6 (9-7), 6-4 defeat to Bejlek at the Cincinnati Open, where the 28-year-old Belarusian held commanding leads in both sets, once again showed an alarming knack for reverse alchemy. 

How the pressure has mounted on Aryna Sabalenka

So as she donned her revealing new mesh Nike outfit in preparation for the US Open mixed doubles alongside Novak Djokovic, Sabalenka must have been hoping for better. Instead, she got more of the same.

A disappointing reversal against doubles specialists Katerina Siniakova and Henry Patten was followed by further brickbats. Critics deemed her dress “trashy”, while a £295,000 jewellery set, the latest provided by Sabalenka’s sponsor Material Good, prompted accusations of tackiness and hypocrisy, given her vocal support for players to receive a larger slice of tournament revenues.

Factor in the growing threat to her ranking – failure to mount a successful title defence will see Sabalenka ousted as No 1, a fate that awaits anyway if Elena Rybakina makes the semi-finals – and she could be forgiven for coming over a bit Kim Cattrall. Or even a lot Kim Cattrall, as she did in an Instagram reel published a couple of days before the tournament began in earnest. Dressed to kill in a pink dress and heels, Sabalenka mouthed along with the famous Samantha Jones quote, which was played over upbeat music as she sashayed along a rooftop balcony with New York’s night skyline twinkling in the background.

The message could not have been clearer – or more in keeping with Sabalenka’s innate bullishness. She couldn’t care less about the noise surrounding her. And in case anyone missed the memo, she has barely missed a chance to reformulate that sentiment in terms more palatable to the delicate sensibilities of the wider tennis world.

‘Maybe there is something wrong with people’

Asked in her pre-tournament media briefing if there was something wrong with her game, Sabalenka replied: “Maybe there is something wrong with people.” A follow-up question about whether she felt as confident as she did last year was given similarly short shrift. “I’m always confident,” she said. 

If those remarks were offered with an air of detached semi-amusement, Sabalenka struggled to suppress outright laughter as she offered a more forthright response to the snarking after her emphatic 53-minute win over qualifier Polina Iatcenko in round two.

“I’m so tired of those miserable haters,” she said in a television interview. “So I decided to really stay strong with myself and trust the process, trust myself, trust my choices. 

“Whoever loves me, they’re going to be there for me no matter what. The haters, honestly, I don’t want to curse here right now, but they can go and… get on with their own lives.”

Even at her most relaxed, there is a simmering intensity about Sabalenka. For weeks, she has taken repeated inquiries about her form and off-court commitments in good part. But the line of questioning has clearly – and understandably – started to grate. Nobody likes to be told they aren’t living up to expectations in the workplace, especially when the truth cuts close to home – and no one will have been more conscious of her recent shortcomings than Sabalenka herself. 

Her bubbling frustration finally burst the banks this week when a reporter enquired, following her demolition of Iatcenko, how her mood was after a build-up week of “parties and fun and stuff like that”. 

Sabalenka: ‘You guys are a joke’

“You guys are, like, a joke,” interjected Sabalenka, shaking her head in despair. “Parties? Fun? Like, why would you even say that? Why would you even think about that? Like, what kind of question is that? Just because I posted some activities with brands, you think I’ve been partying and not training?”

Some context is required here. The question was almost identical to one Sabalenka fielded after her first-round victory over Camila Osorio, when she was asked how she balanced the energy required to attend sponsor events in the week leading up to the US Open with maintaining her level on court. On that occasion, Sabalenka was plainly frustrated – “Why do you think the week before wasn’t focused on tennis?” she countered – but went on to offer a patient and reasoned response.

‘I really enjoy my time with brands’

“It’s like my hobby outside of tennis,” she said of her attendance at events hosted by the drinks companies Electrolit and Dobel Tequila, cosmetics brand Moroccanoil, and fashion house Gucci, all of which are among her sponsors. 

“The whole schedule we plan is all around tennis. So all those events are not drawing [my energy] in any way. All the people that I work with, all brands that I work with, I choose them very carefully. I have to be really comfortable around those people, just so I’m not drawing my energy when I’m surrounded by them. 

“I really enjoy my time with brands, with [the] people who work there. I have fun; it’s like my hobby outside of my tennis schedule. It actually gives me so much energy.”

Whatever one makes of that explanation, Sabalenka is hardly unique among the top players in using the US Open’s “fan week” to honour commercial obligations. According to Forbes, she has earned $23m (£17m) off the court over the past 12 months, a figure that, combined with $13.1m in prize money, placed her behind only Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Serena Williams on the list of the sport’s highest earners. Tennis comes first, but in a career where the peak years are all too brief, sponsorship opportunities must also be taken.

‘Think before you say stuff’

The larger question is just how worthwhile it was to revisit an issue Sabalenka had already addressed fairly fully, albeit with some exasperation, two days earlier. While she was never likely to offer a different answer, she was almost certain to be irritated – particularly when asked if, with the tournament proper underway, she was now “getting serious”.

“Oh yeah, I wasn’t serious before that,” Sabalenka shot back sarcastically. “Think before you say stuff.”

In the reporter’s defence, the question, however ill-timed, did not appear to be deliberately provocative. Despite her 99-week stranglehold on the top ranking, Sabalenka is seeking redemption at the season’s final major for a second successive year. It is not what one would expect of an otherwise dominant world No 1, and while her difficulties last term were largely limited to the business end of majors, the narrative has changed since March, when she became only the fifth woman to complete the Sunshine Double of Indian Wells and Miami. She has not won a tournament since, yet her off-court activities – TikTok content, magazine shoots, Instagram posts, her popular vlog – have continued unabated. It is perfectly legitimate to wonder if she has taken her eye off the ball.

And let’s not forget Sabalenka did not need to react as she did. She could simply have rolled her eyes and trotted out the same response she gave two days earlier. She could have referred her interrogator to her previous answer, or declined to comment at all. Her tetchy response was therefore telling. Is she feeling the heat? You bet she is. But feeling it and dealing with it are two very different things, and it is the manner of her response that merits attention.

A mission to silence the doubters

Through to a sixth straight quarter-final at Flushing Meadows, a landmark last reached by Serena Williams in 2014, Sabalenka has yet to drop a set. Throughout, her determination has been palpable. It has not been all plain sailing – Kamilla Rakhimova tested her at times, while the wily American southpaw Taylor Townsend salvaged four service breaks from a 6-4, 6-3 defeat – but the four-time grand slam winner is clearly on a mission to silence the doubters. Better yet for the defending champion, she is enjoying it.

“I love matches like that, because it was really challenging,” Sabalenka said following her win over Townsend. “Going through tough challenges and overcoming those challenges, it definitely gives you really strong belief that you can do it. So this kind of match is really, like, a boost of confidence.”

That would seem timely, what with Linda Noskova, the Wimbledon champion and sixth seed, awaiting in the last eight. The pair have met twice before, with Sabalenka prevailing in straight sets on each occasion, but the Czech promises to be a tougher out this time. Against Marta Kostyuk, Noskova once again showcased the resilience that earned her a maiden grand slam title in SW19, winning in three tight sets after failing to convert match points that would have given her a straight-sets victory, just as she did against Karolina Muchova in the Wimbledon final. The matchup is sure to generate further noise, including the sound of Sabalenka’s critics sharpening their knives. Do not expect her to be listening.  

“Throw tough challenges at me, I will come back only stronger,” Sabalenka said at the start of the tournament.

So far, she has been as good as her word.

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The cruel irony was that, just like five years ago, when defeat to Daniil Medvedev in the US Open final prevented him from becoming only the third man in history to win all four majors in a calendar year, the cheers owed as much to pity as adulation.

Pity at the spectacle of one of the sport’s greatest champions enduring a humbling 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 loss to 49th-ranked Mariano Navone that snapped a streak of 77 opening-round wins at grand slam level dating back to 2006. Pity that the 39-year-old was once again dogged by the undisclosed health issue that did for him against another Argentinian, Thiago Agustín Tirante, earlier this month in Cincinnati. Above all, pity that Djokovic, for so long the doyen of the improbable, was for once unable to turn the tide as he has so often in the past.

It was not for want of trying. Having lost the opening set, where he looked off colour even as he established a 4-1 lead, Djokovic fought back to win the next two and claimed an early break in the fourth. By that stage, however, he had already vomited repeatedly in addition to looking unsteady on his feet and showing signs of cramping. In truth, it was a marvel that the 24-time grand slam champion was able to create a platform for victory at all; having done so, though, his race was run. 

From 2-1 up in the fourth set, Djokovic would win only one more game. When that moment came, three games into the decider, he fought back tears as the locals chanted his name, much as he had struggled to contain his emotions in similar circumstances against Medvedev in 2021. 

Back then, Djokovic said the love he received from the crowd would stay with him forever. He will waste no time in trying to put this latest torrid experience on Ashe behind him, yet he will surely also hold on to the latest outpouring of affection from the New York public, even if it once more came in the most unwelcome of circumstances.

“The love and respect they showed me at the end really touched my heart,” said Djokovic, speaking to reporters outside the locker room shortly after midnight local time.

“I’m so grateful that I experienced that. When it comes to the match itself. and the general feeling of how I felt in my body and how I played, it really wasn’t pleasant. I pretty much despised every moment I spent on the court today.”

If those were strong words, they were also understandable. With Jannik Sinner, the Italian world No 1, absent because of a knee injury, and defending champion Carlos Alcaraz playing his first event since leaving the tour in April to heal an inflamed wrist, this year’s US Open presented a real opportunity for Djokovic to claim a record 25th major. An injury retirement against Alexander Zverev in Melbourne last year aside, only Sinner and Alcaraz have been able to stop Djokovic at the majors in the past two seasons. But it was clear almost from the outset that he was not himself, with heat and humidity once again contributing to his malaise.

“[It was] an awful feeling on the court for me,” Djokovic said of his four hour and 36 minute ordeal. “It’s something that I’ve been carrying, unfortunately, pretty much every match this year. You know, vomiting, throwing up, serious issue there. And then my whole body starts to collapse, basically cramping and pain. The back just gave up in the end, and the shoulder, and I couldn’t close it out. 

“[I] just struggled all the way, since the fourth game of the match. And again, I don’t want to take too much out of his win: congrats to him, he’s a nice guy, a fighter. But you know, I didn’t enjoy myself.”

That much was increasingly evident as the match ran away from Djokovic. After making a fast start, he began to labour physically whenever the rallies extended beyond a few shots, which Navone, a player more naturally at home on clay, almost invariably ensured they did. Djokovic was given pills by the trainer late in the first set and received a back massage before the fifth, but neither medical attention nor the rain that prompted the early closure of the roof, bringing the stadium’s air conditioning into play, could help him pull off another of those comebacks that were once his stock-in-trade.

Djokovic admitted afterwards that he had contemplated retiring from the match. Encouraged by his success in the second and third sets, however, he said he didn’t want to throw in the towel when “maybe there is a chance”. 

The question now is how many more chances there will be for Djokovic – although it should be remembered that it is barely seven weeks since he reached a Wimbledon semi-final. It would be a major surprise not to find him in Melbourne come next January. For now, though, the priority must be to find a solution to the health issues that, together with a spirited performance from Navone against his childhood idol, denied Djokovic a proper tilt at a fifth title in New York.

“I’m trying, man, I’m trying,” said Djokovic. “I’m just trying to see what is really happening and how far I can go like this.”

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