Home hero Shelton survives gruelling battle to march on at the US Open

[p]The eighth seed, bidding ‌to end a 23-year US men's major title ‌drought, arrived in New York on the back ‌of his Montreal victory and enjoyed strong backing in Arthur Ashe Stadium during the finely poised encounter.[/p][p][b]"Super happy ‌with the way the match went. ⁠I thought it ‌was a battle to the end," [/b]said [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/shelton-ben/QNuG0Gzb/"]Shelton[/a], who ​strained to hear an on-court reporter after the match. [b]"If I was commentating, I ​would talk about how loud this crowd was from start to finish."[/b][/p][embed guid="0a31dd89-eb3f-43a4-b954-fa769a9ad5e1" url="https://x.com/usopen/status/2095250694567559650" social-type="twitter" /][p]It looked as though it ⁠would be ​an easy day for Shelton after [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/hurkacz-hubert/zuHOBnY9/"]Hurkacz[/a] surrendered his serve with a pair of double faults in the sixth game.[/p][p]But the Pole improved his ‌level with 15 winners in the second set, where his forehand just kissed the baseline for the critical break on set point.[/p][p]The pair battled toe-to-toe in a tense third set before Hurkacz gave it away in the tiebreak, letting Shelton get off to a costly 3-0 headstart.[/p][p]The contest appeared to be heading towards a ‌deciding set when Shelton was forced to defend ​two break points in the ninth game ‌of the fourth set.[/p][p]But the 2023 semi-finalist found another gear, hammering Hurkacz with his mighty forehand in the 12th game before flexing his arms in wide-eyed celebration as his opponent ⁠sent his forehand ⁠out on match point.[/p][h2][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/game/tennis/hurkacz-h-zuHOBnY9/shelton-b-QNuG0Gzb/?mid=pbbSIaWs"]Click here for more on the match[/a][/h2][infobox id="3dc51b3a-107f-482b-9173-a97d347ef1b3" /]