Ben Shelton kept asking Carlos Alcaraz the same question through five sets of a bruising US Open quarter-final: how many times can you find another answer?
Shelton had lost all three of their previous meetings, but little about the match suggested he was carrying that history with him. At one stage, Shelton had won nine consecutive games stretching across the second and third sets. Against a player renowned for disrupting an opponent’s momentum, it was a remarkable stretch of control.
Alcaraz found one in the opening set. Shelton found several of his own after that. By the time the contest reached a deciding fifth set, neither had been able to shake the other off, with the match reduced to one final test of nerve after repeated swings in momentum. Alcaraz finally stopped the run with a love hold, celebrating loudly as he tried to reset the match, but Shelton remained composed on serve. Suddenly, Alcaraz was a set away from defeat. The fourth began with another moment of danger. Alcaraz faced a break point in his opening service game, with Shelton threatening to take immediate control of the set. The Spaniard escaped, and then turned the pressure around almost instantly. He attacked Shelton’s next service game, earned break points and converted to move ahead before consolidating the advantage. It was not the free-flowing Alcaraz normally associated with his best Grand Slam tennis. He was still being pushed, still having to protect service games and still unable to completely blunt Shelton’s power. But the quality that kept surfacing was his resistance.
Even when Alcaraz created opportunities late in the set, the American held him off and completed a 6-3 third set.
