Ben Shelton Triumphs Over Hubert Hurkacz to Advance in US Open
On a soaked, stop-start day in New York, Ben Shelton found something steady: his nerve.
The American No. 8 seed slugged his way past Hubert Hurkacz 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 7-5 on Wednesday, booking his place in the US Open third round and stretching a remarkable hard-court Slam streak. He has now reached the third round at eight straight majors on this surface, a run that includes last year’s charge to the semifinals in Flushing Meadows.
This one wasn’t clean. It was rugged. And that suited him just fine.
“I think being battle-tested is great,” Shelton said, having already gone four sets in the opening round. He admitted he didn’t need to be out there this long — “Maybe I could have won this match more efficiently today” — but tipped his hat to Hurkacz’s late surge and pointed to the upside of the grind. Being pushed, he said, forced out the adjustments he’d been trying to make over the past few days and sharpened them in real time.
“Playing a match like that definitely, you know, benefits me moving forward,” he said.
Shelton took control early, snapping up the first set 6-3 and looking ready to cruise. Hurkacz refused to fold. The Pole lifted his level, edged the second set 7-5, and dragged the contest into the kind of tight, nervy territory where a young contender can wobble.
Shelton didn’t. He held firm in a tense third-set tiebreak, then broke late in the fourth to close it out 7-5, turning a dangerous match into another step in his growing New York résumé.
Rain, roofs and restless players
Outside Shelton’s win, the day belonged as much to the weather as to the tennis.
For the second straight day, rain pelted the grounds and scrambled the schedule. Matches on the outer courts stopped and started, then stopped again, while the two big arenas — Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium — carried on under closed roofs.
On Ashe, No. 7 seed Daniil Medvedev barely broke stride in a straight-sets win over Sebastian Gorzny, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5. The only real interruption came from an unusual pair of visitors.
Two birds landed on the net mid-point. Medvedev expected the chair umpire to halt play. He didn’t — not until after Medvedev had struck what he thought was a clean winner.
“This would be definitely in the top five,” Medvedev said when asked where the incident ranked among his odd Flushing Meadows moments. “But the thing is that when they came in, I thought, okay, the referee is going to stop the point, and he let it play, like, Okay, let’s play. And the moment I hit the winner, he was, like, Stop, stop, stop.
“It’s okay. It happens.”
Medvedev shrugged, reset and finished the job, a seasoned operator navigating both opponent and chaos with minimal fuss.
De Minaur adapts, Jodar routed
All over the grounds, players were juggling warm-ups, delays and last-minute court changes. The US Open’s move to a Sunday start last year was designed to spread the first round over three days and create a cleaner rhythm. The weather ripped that plan apart. By Wednesday, some were already in the second round while others were still trying to get their campaigns started.
Alex de Minaur, the No. 6 seed, lived that disruption in full. His match got moved twice from the court where he was initially scheduled before he finally walked out on Court 11 to open his tournament.
Once he did, he wasted no time.
The Australian brushed aside Italy’s Andrea Guerrieri 6-2, 6-2, 6-4, his trademark speed and intensity cutting through any lingering frustration.
“It’s been a couple tough days. But I mean, these tournaments, it’s all about adapting and that’s the name of the game,” de Minaur said. “There’s too much to play for to let something like this affect you.”
On another court, the weather-weary schedule did Rafael Jodar no favors. The No. 12 seed, a 19-year-old from Spain coming in off a strong summer, finally completed his first-round match — and ran straight into a buzzsaw.
China’s Yunchaokete Bu dismantled him 6-2, 6-1, 6-1, a brutal scoreline on a day when Jodar had already spent hours waiting, then waiting some more.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy because I was waiting a lot yesterday and today as well, but it is what it is,” Jodar said. “We cannot control the rain, so it’s difficult for both players.”
Upset on a crowded day
With the tournament scrambling to catch up from Tuesday’s washout, the men’s draw alone squeezed in 25 singles matches. By Wednesday night, the first round finally wrapped.
It did so with a jolt.
American Alex Michelsen delivered one of the day’s standout results, ousting fellow countryman and No. 16 seed Brandon Nakashima 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. No drama, no fifth-set tension. Just a clean, straight-sets upset that slices open Michelsen’s section of the draw and sends a seeded player home before the tournament has properly settled.
So the US Open staggers out of its weather jam with the draw back on track, the roofs doing overtime, and the contenders already showing their hands. Shelton has his battle scars. Medvedev has his bird story. The rest of the field, finally, has a level playing field — at least until the next storm rolls in.
