NEW YORK — Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz didn’t really play a tennis match overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning at the U.S. Open, as they set a record for the latest finish in tournament history.
Sure, there were rackets and balls and deuces and ads, but those were mere details. This was a heavyweight prize fight between two of the biggest stars in the sport, an American athletic acrobat of the highest order, and an artist in the sweet science of the game, capable of playing a version of tennis that no one else is familiar with.
Styles make fights. So do personalities who love nothing more than performing on the biggest and brightest stages. After a day filled with drama, the two biggest characters in the tournament finally hit the first ball at 11:05 p.m. ET, on par with a pay-per-view main event. Nearly 24,000 people, in a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium, settled in to watch the fight — or at least the start of it.
When the end came, at 3:33 a.m., it was Shelton roaring to the faithful who had stayed behind, with a 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(10-7) win sealed by a 146 mph ace. It ended on his signature, the shot that he could always rely on but that had never taken him past a player of Alcaraz’s gravity.
“That was a war. Epic match. So physical,” Shelton said. He added: “Carlos, one of the greatest champions in our sport already at 23 years old. It’s always fun.”
“The most enjoyable match I’ve had in my career,” he said.
It began like it was supposed to. Shelton and Alcaraz throwing haymakers at each other but unable to put together enough combinations to do any lasting damage. Then the thing happened that seemingly always does with Alcaraz, or really his opponent.
At 5-5, with Shelton matching a slightly loose version of the seven-time Grand Slam champion shot for shot, all it took was a couple of loose strokes, a missed first serve or two, and Alcaraz had the break he needed.
Then Shelton broke right back, an unusual circumstance for Alcaraz, who shanked two forehands far off the court. He’s been out nearly five months with a wrist injury. From anyone else, that would be normal. From Alcaraz, who had found his groove over his first four matches, it was odd.
The tiebreak saw them trade mistakes, punctuated by a jaw-dropping point of lunging, acrobatic improvisation that Shelton won with a deft lob that sent Alcaraz sliding with his back to the net.
But with Shelton holding a 5-3 edge, Alcaraz went on one of his soul-crushing runs.
He rushed Shelton into a miss on a routine backhand, followed a sideline-breaking backhand with a forehand into the open court, smacked a bullet forehand down the line, and then finished the set with one of those wild all-court points. A slick reflex lob, an outrageous tweener save by Shelton. It merely staved off another trap. First set Alcaraz.
He had his cross to the jaw. All that hard work Shelton had put in for more than an hour, and he had nothing to show for it, just like so many of his recent meetings against Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
The next 80 minutes of tennis showed something else. Shelton might have lost that early battle, but it seemed to have taken something out of Alcaraz.
The next set-and-a-half passed in a blur of Alcaraz errors, 17 of them unforced in the second set alone, against just 8 winners. Shelton broke Alcaraz’s serve once, twice, and then a third time. Had he really just drilled Alcaraz 6-1 to draw even? He sure had.
When it was over, Alcaraz stood in a hallway under Arthur Ashe Stadium with a smile on his face. He was happy to have competed, to have played the tournament at all. Shelton’s serve had manacled him just enough; the first set’s effort had tired him just enough.
Ben Shelton served his way through jeopardy down the stretch of his match against Carlos Alcaraz. (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
Maybe it was the rust from a nearly five-month break finally showing. Maybe it was the hour. The Spanish are known for their late nights, but elite tennis at 2 a.m. isn’t something anyone trains for.
Shelton had done one of these shifts earlier in the tournament, after a Williams sisters doubles match went three hours. When the 23-year-old American and his opponent, Canada’s Denis Shapovalov, took the court, their brains and their games were goo. It took Shelton two sets to steady himself and two more to oust Shapovalov.
Tuesday night against Alcaraz, the third set was a little smoother. Shelton on the front foot, chasing Alcaraz around the court with body blow serves and driving strokes into the corners, getting the early break again. It wasn’t until midway through that Alcaraz got the fist pumps going, seemingly trying to wake himself out of a daze.
There was a late charge as Shelton tried to serve out the set. At 30-30, they played another one of their crazy can-you-top-this points, their seventh or eighth or 12th of a night in which the tennis was otherwise nervous and provisional, afraid of the outcome it might produce. Both of them went sprinting to catch up with crazy angled drop shots, before Alcaraz won it with a twisting forehand winner hit while he headed for the back wall.
It was the sort of point he uses to drive on one of his surges. Shelton knew it. He headed for his towel. On the way, his father, Bryan, who is his coach, leaned over the video board and reached out his hand to let his boy know he was doing good. Keep running.
Shelton slapped it. Message received. Three pumped serves. Three errors. Now he was a set from the finish line.
Alcaraz sat on his chair with his head between his knees, seemingly gassed. When he got up for the fourth set, he looked out on his feet. A forehand miss gave Shelton a chance for a knockout punch, but Shelton sent a backhand long. Then Alcaraz left his gloves down again, mishitting a ball into the net. Another chance for a potentially decisive blow. Shelton missed it with a forehand error.
He seemed unbothered. Alcaraz was giving him so many chances. Surely more would come. Except they didn’t. Alcaraz, who had spent most of the night looking disoriented, serve-and-drop-volleyed off a rocket return, got one more error, let out a yell and came alive.
Carlos Alcaraz was pushed to the limit by Ben Shelton at the U.S. Open. (Pete Staples / Getty Images)
Tennis moves fast. A couple of minutes earlier, Shelton had been on the verge of cruise control. Now, he couldn’t find the court. Alcaraz sensed the dip and sent him running east and west along the baseline, breaking him for the first time since late in the first set by outlasting him on one of those corner-to-corner scraps.
It was getting on 2 in the morning. There were still some 10,000 people in the stands. Shelton was on the ropes and a long night was about to go the distance. Nothing good is supposed to happen after 2 a.m., except when otherworldly tennis players choose the early hours to awaken from their slumber.
Fifth set. 2-2. Alcaraz rips a forehand to get break point. Here comes the kill. No, not now, Shelton says. He hops back two steps, rises and crushes an overhead that knocks Alcaraz to the ground. Then he pumps in that serve, gets the game, turns to the crowd and shakes his racket in the air. He wants noise. The U.S.A chant starts up.
It’s 2:45 a.m. Shelton’s father is up on his feet. It’s nice to have a parent watching over you in the middle of the night. By 2:51 a.m., Shelton and Alcaraz have surpassed the latest finish in U.S. Open history. That was in 2022, when Alcaraz and Sinner played a quarterfinal that started as an expedition into the sport’s future and ended with its present ever-changed.
Now it was Alcaraz’s turn to mount a great escape. Shelton had three chances to earn a shot at serving out the match. He floated a chip approach shot from the middle of the court, instead of ripping it, and as it kissed the ground the lights on the net posts turned red. Not this time.
Alcaraz ripped a running crosscourt passing shot on the next one. Shelton whipped a backhand into the net on the third. 3 a.m. was here. And so, at 3:20, nearly 14 hours after tennis began for the previous day in the world’s biggest tennis arena, the two heavyweights played the only game that was left to play, a 10-point tiebreak to decide the match. Chants of “Let’s go Ben” echoed around the stadium. Fans whooped and clapped. And the beep, beep, beep of the garbage trucks preparing the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center for sunrise and another day of tennis pierced the moments of silence.
With Shelton leading 3-1, he made three errors in the next four points. Those, plus a big forehand from Alcaraz, let the Spaniard quiet the “Let’s go Ben” chants.
But then Alcaraz started to leak. “Let’s go Ben” boomed up again. Shelton crushed a serve. Alcaraz sent a forehand long. Shelton was two points from the finish.
At 8-7 and serving, the match was on his racket. Bang into the body. Now just one more, Ace. Knockout. An American man hasn’t won a Grand Slam title in 23 years. One will be in the final Sunday after Shelton meets Frances Tiafoe.
Maybe the party is just getting started.
