Zero for seven
Hubert Hurkacz is 0-7 in the second round of the US Open. Seven appearances, seven losses, all at the same stage. He hit 47 winners Wednesday night, out-aced his opponent 14 to six, and saved eight of 11 break points. He is still going home.
Ben Shelton is not. The No. 8 seed came through 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 7-5 in nearly three and a half hours under a closed roof at Arthur Ashe.
Forty-four winners for the American, and 35 unforced errors alongside them. Nobody will put this one in a highlight reel. It counted all the same.
The third-set tiebreak decided it. Hurkacz had just leveled the match at a set apiece and had every reason to believe. Shelton took the mini-break, refused to give it back, then finally broke serve in the 12th game of the fourth.
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A crowd that never sat down
“I’m really happy with the way the match played out,” Shelton said on court afterward. “It was a battle all the way through and I think Hubi played exceptionally well today. It was really tough to deal with everything he was throwing at me.”
Then he got to what he actually wanted to talk about. “If I was commentating, I’d be talking about the noise from this crowd from start to finish.”
New York has adopted him. Four years running he has reached the third round at Flushing Meadows, and back in 2023, aged 20 and ranked nowhere, he went all the way to the semifinals.
Denis Shapovalov comes next. The Canadian handled Luca Van Assche 6-0, 6-4, 7-6 (7) earlier in the day. A bagel to open, then a Frenchman who dug in without ever threatening to flip it.
Rinderknech breezes through, then draws Medvedev
One Frenchman is still alive, and he looks good. Arthur Rinderknech, seeded 26th, beat Spain’s Jaume Munar 7-6 (4), 6-2, 7-5 without dropping a set.
His reward is brutal. Daniil Medvedev, the world No. 7, awaits in round three after taking apart American Sebastian Gorzny 6-1, 6-3, 7-5. Fourteen aces to three. He won 86.8 percent of points behind his first serve.
The upset of the day belonged to Daniel Merida. The Spaniard lost the opening set in a tiebreak to 23rd seed Andrey Rublev, then won the next three. Alexander Bublik and Alex de Minaur both went through without wasting a game.
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