US Open Day 10 - Shelton shocks Alcaraz in latest finish ever

27:20David Law:and neither one of them has ever reached a Grand Slam final before. This is the opportunity. And I did find a very different press conference setting to what we had for Alcraz and Shelton just now, which is middle of the night, so they do it in the corridor just outside the locker room. The number of texts we've had this tournament telling us that someone is in a hallway at 3am. It's always Alexander Zverev, but this time it was Alcraz and Shelton. But yes, several hours ago, Alex Mickelson came into his press conference and he'd clearly been taking a little time to come to terms with this. He said it took me a few minutes, really, but I'm OK.

28:05David Law:I'm really gutted, but he didn't use that word. But that's the gist of what he said. But I believe in what I did today and I think I'll get better for it. He was very matter-of-fact. I thought he handled it really well. Tiafoe came in, and he's one of these that sort of had the view that, look, I was going to be okay with the results because I was going to leave it all out there. And he's, because I said to him, you know, you've had a couple of heartbreakers this year already against Matteo Arnaldi at the French Open and Alexander Bublik at Wimbledon, both of them five sets, and you came out on the wrong side of them.

28:43David Law:Did they occur to you at all in the match? He said, not at all. He said, I just wanted to win what was in front of me. But he went on to say that this is the best he's ever played. This is the best season he's ever had. And what he most wants is to see what this version of himself can achieve. He wants to know what this me can do. And what he means by that is he accepts that the two previous versions that have been in the semifinals of the US Open were not maximising what he was capable of because he was doing it on a kind of ad hoc basis almost, coming into the favourite time of the year, the summer, Wimbledon, the US Open, when he's keyed up and when he's enjoying it.

29:31David Law:And he was turning it on. And he said at the start of this year, you know, my whole family, my agent, my friends, my coaches just said, we don't want, you know, if you're going to do that, just stop playing. if you want to do it properly and go all in, let's do it. And he chose that route. And he spoke about process in the press conference. But he says, all I care about is my process of kind of clocking in every day and giving my best every single day. And it's led to him getting more match wins this year than he's ever had. He's going to be ranked higher than he's ever been. None of that will mean an awful lot, I don't think, in his mind, unless he maximizes at a slam eventually.

30:16David Law:But he's giving himself the best chance. I think he's satisfied with that. He knows he's giving himself the best chance this time. And I'm so fascinated to see which way this one ends up going. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I sort of have confidence that Tiafoe will prepare well for this match because, as you say, he's got these routines that he's going to stay in. And he's now in a position to be able to treat, you know, do that thing of treating that match like it's any other match that the best players say. And you kind of think, how? How did he do that? You sort of think in the past, Tiafoe has been showing up for that match in a different way to the ones that got in there.

31:04But you just back him to prepare for it in the right way. and I think even if he'd lost this one in the fifth set, he'd have been able to live with the end of that match because he got it together. I think if he'd lost that in three today, he would have found that very, very difficult to come back from because that wasn't the version of himself that he wants to put out on the court. But by the end of the match, it absolutely was. And it was remarkable the way he found his game. You know, that is such a skill to be able to do that under that much pressure. And not panicking, not just thinking, oh, no, it's all going wrong.

31:47Right. Yeah, totally. There was a stat going around, wasn't there, that he hit three aces in the first four sets. Three aces for a guy over four sets is just not that many. And he upped that to seven in the deciding set alone. That was such an important shot for him, and it's going to be, again, against Ben Shelton. Because I do think, just to very briefly go back to the Alcaraz-Shelton match, I do think what we found all tournament with Alcaraz not serving at his best, that did get a bit exposed tonight for the first time by Ben Shelton, who returned way better than I thought he would, than he kind of ever has done.

32:25But Alcaraz's serve was vulnerable, and if Tiafoe's serve's vulnerable, given what we've just seen Shelton do on return, that's going to be a problem for him. So he's going to need that shot firing from the start. But it's an incredible occasion as well, isn't it? Just having those two, who I do think they're the two, obviously Fritz is the most accomplished, I would say, out of that pack. He's the most consistent probably over a long period of time. but I think if you polled a lot of fans here about who their favourite American players are, I think you'd get a lot of people answering Francis Tiafran and a lot of people answering Ben Shelton.

33:06There'll be an electricity to that match.

33:09David Law:Yeah. And I can't wait for it. No. Who do you think is going to win? I think Ben Shelton. But then the thing that comes into the equation is backing up that win, which is one of the hardest things to do. He will feel like he's climbed the mountain, that all these guys are trying to beat Carlos Alcres and Yannick Sinner because they sort of think, well, if I do that, I'll probably win a slam. He's done that. He's got two more matches to go to actually try and win the slam. That is extraordinary. Plus it finished at God knows what time it was in the morning, half past three. It's so much to come back from, but I do back him physically.

33:49David Law:They do have two full days, and then they played on the third day. So that's a big help. Well, I think... Look, I said Shelton would win the tournament. Now, I realize I flip-flopped last night and I said Alcaraz would beat him because I thought Alcaraz was his normal self. And I think we found out that he wasn't quite. Not in terms of match toughness. So, I mean, look, I really do feel pretty 50-50 about this match. I've seen Tiafa play the best tennis I've ever seen him play this year. And I think he's got the engine. But I also think Shelton's playing the best tennis I've ever seen him play.

34:37David Law:And he's got the engine. I'll go Shelton, still. I'll go for him to win it now. I'll go back to what I said before, Matt. You know, I like to cover my bets. And I will give you credit for that. OK, we'll see. Look, it's just been an incredible night. And that's the men's portion of it we'll be back in part two to give you the women's portion of this incredible day and i tell you that was just as dramatic as well well welcome back to part two of the tennis podcast and if you thought part one was exciting well part two is no less exciting really because the day started with arena sabalenka the world number one trying to hold on to her world number round ranking trying to defend her US Open title for a second time and win three in a row and here she was against Linda Noskova the Wimbledon champion in an absolute toe-to-toe slugfest of a match it was eventually won by Sabalenka 7-6 3-6 7-6 and I mean right until the end of this one I did not know who was going to win and and Noshkova just she's just raised her level so much really hasn't she over the last few months obviously winning the Wimbledon title along the way but she is a real champion of a player and and she does it so much differently to Sabalenka Sabalenka is all roars and you hear and feel every bit of power she's putting into the ball, Noskova does it quietly and yet just as devastatingly in her own way.

36:19But in terms

36:21David Law:of the achievement for Sabalenka, I think it is an enormous one. It's massive, I think. This was the match, this was the moment I think we'd been waiting for, she'd been waiting for. I wanted to see Sabalenka in this scenario really tested against a great player because it's been a really tough few months for Sabalenka. She's not been going deep in tournaments, which she does so regularly. She's had some real crash-outs in matches and faded. Ordinarily, Sabalenka should feel like the favourite for the title if she's still in the draw in the quarterfinals, having won it the last two years and everything she's achieved on hard courts in particular.

37:11And yet she hasn't felt like that to me. I've been waiting for something to go wrong, I suppose. And yet she stood up to Noskova today and won this match. I mean, the first set struck me as a very typical Sabalenka performance in slams that we've got used to over the last few years. A fantastic start. It was pretty flat on the Arthur Ashe Stadium to begin with. You know, this was many, many hours ago. And the sun was out. I can't remember too much about it. The sun was out and this awful shadow was across the Arthrash Stadium. And it just didn't have the feel of a big quarterfinal between, you know, still just about the current world number one and the Wimbledon champion.

38:00And yet Sabalenka was bringing all this energy and she was up for it and she was awesome and took a lead. but then Noskova got the first set back into a tie break and then what happened? Tie break Sabalenka arrived. You know, someone we've not really... Someone who was just so consistent for so long in those big moments stepping up in tie breaks but someone who we haven't seen in a little while and she did that there and then and won that first set on a tie break. But then what happened was for the next set and a half Noskova totally outplayed Sabalenka Having settled after an initial bad start, Noskova found her game and she was flawless through the middle portion of this match.

38:45Serving beautifully, she had that wonderful out-wide serve going on the deuce. She was handling Sabalenka's pace with her own hand skills. She was getting a lot of success off Sabalenka's second serve. She was just majestic. The form that won her Wimbledon. Her incredible wide serve, swinging out. Right, just brilliant. And I thought Noskova was going to close it. I really did. But then I suddenly remembered, oh, she does get tight. You know, even when we saw her win Wimbledon, Noskova got tight. And that did happen to her deep in that third set when she was up a break. She lost her serve. Now, Sabalenka, there was one particular great point in that game that Sabalenka played as she got the break back.

39:36But I'd felt like Sabalenka's tennis had remained pretty good through this match. She'd just been being outplayed. I didn't feel like it was the Sabalenka of the last few months who lost her game, lost her way in the match. She was just being outplayed. And as soon as she got an opening, she seized it. And her attitude was mostly incredibly positive body language. and she went on a real streak at the end of that third set and won several points in a row to end up leading the set and then it was up for Noskova to take it into a tie break and it was just fantastic. It was a fantastic match between two players playing close to the peak of their powers.

40:21Yeah, it sure was. And then for Sabalenka to finish it the way she did with a second serve ace on match point.

40:31David Law:I mean, that was so fitting to me for her showing her nerve and her champion spirit, which I feel as though the last six months, she's wobbled a bit, really. You know, she's lost herself at times in big matches. And this was her facing down a real threat. somebody that, you know, she said afterwards, she's so good, Linda Noskova, Sabalenka. She was so full with her praise for her and she was under enormous stress and yet she came up with a second serve ace on match point. Oh, unbelievable. Like kind of using Noskova's own weapon against her. Yeah, the swinging serve outwire. Yeah, and we were sort of watching it.

41:21I think she was 9-7 up or something like that in the tiebreaker.

41:25David Law:the time and so you know it's it's still very much on a tight on a tight rope this and a knife edge and and she she's got a second serve and you can tell Noska lining up this forehand to knock it down her throat and she doesn't even get a racket on it amazing on a second serve yeah it was incredible and there was a line that came up in the commentary which I think was quoting someone from Sabalenka's team talking about how she needs fires within her. It's good when Sabalenka is displaying a lot of emotion and roaring and getting angry at the world. That's good. That's a fire. What it's become over the last few months is wildfires, where she can't control it and it's too much and she loses her game.

42:18but it was all the right amount today and I think this sets her up so incredibly well for this tournament now. She needed this win. I don't think she could have won this tournament without experiencing a match like this and being put under that pressure and facing down an opponent playing so well and she stood up to it and her tennis was awesome and she's shown over the last few years that her tennis on this surface is the best.

42:53David Law:Yeah. And it just sets up the rest of this tournament so well because there's still so many other players who can stress her out, can push her, can test it again, can see whether it really is going to be there again in another match. Like, the women's draw is riveting right now. Yeah, because they've all got their own stories. She's got her, Sabalenka, she said impressed that winning this slam, bear in mind she hasn't won a Grand Slam this year, is more important to her than retaining a world number one ranking. And her world number one ranking is under threat, big threat. One of the players that could take it over this tournament is Jessica Bagula, who played in the second of the women's matches today.

43:45David Law:She was up against Emma Navarro. Now this match was delayed over an hour because of the length of the Tiafoe-Mickelson match. So it started well after 8 o 'clock. It was due to start at 7. And it was a pretty nervy affair, wasn't it? I actually thought the sort of ball striking between the two was really enjoyable to watch. I think that they make for nice rallies. but Navarro won the first set 6-3 and Pekula's body language was not great really. She looked edgy all the way through it and I think it was a huge achievement for Pekula who came back and won it 3-6-6-4-6-3 to win that match given the way she started.

44:26Yeah, these two didn't even go to a deciding set tie break. What's wrong with them? Hopefully they're not getting the same pay as Sabalenka and Noshkula

44:34David Law:who went 7-0, of course. I mean, it's just, it's amazing. All four matches going to deciding sets. Yeah, and look, this was definitely the least dramatic match of the day and the nerviest, I think, the worst quality probably as well. Like you, I was enjoying a lot of the rallies. When they got into the rallies, it's just that there was a lot in between the high moments of real frustration. But for Pagula, I think a similar story to her tournament so far, opening set, really struggling with her serve, below 30 % first serves in. You're just putting yourself on the back foot immediately and against someone of Navarro's quality, that's really, really hard.

45:20And Andrea Petkovic said in commentary that serving like that can affect your whole game. You know, like it's the shot where you think you should be able to control and serve well. And if your serve's not going well, it can affect everything. And Pagula's whole game was kind of struggling from that. And her body language, as you say, was very frustrated. Even when she was winning points, she was sometimes, you know, really sighing and shrugging and having a bit like, oh, you know, I should have won that more easily, perhaps. Or why is it so much effort to win points tonight? It was that kind of vibe.

45:58And, yeah, Wenner sat down, but did really well to turn it around. Cleaned up the first percentage, got it back to over 70%, halved the number of errors. I think she'd also struggled a little bit with the night conditions, perhaps, that she was changing rackets a lot. She hadn't played at night this tournament on Ash. She played pretty late on Armstrong, but not night on Ash. And it is different. And there was just a lot going on. And I also think the world number one thing is such a big factor for Pagula. You know, like she said in press the other day, how that was her dream when she was young.

46:30And she's trying to win a slam for the first time. And it's suddenly like she's got these two things. And it's just a lot for her to deal with. And she's not really playing her absolute best. And she's up against someone in Navarro who's so hard to put away. I think it's actually a really impressive effort from Pagula to win this tonight. tonight and she's now 19 and 5 in deciding sets this year like wow an incredible record that when she gets into a match she so often manages to to get over the line and yeah this was one to just get through and now and now she's got arena savilenka who has blocked her here at this tournament the last two years in the final in the semi-finals and there were close matches 7-5, 7-5 in the final of 2024.

47:20And she won the first set in their semifinal last year, 6-4, but then lost the next two sets, 6-3, 6-4. And that final set was that crazy final set where she only lost four points on serve in the entire set, and they were all in one game and got broken. She held every other service game to love Pagula. She was so good in that match. and I've really liked Pagula's chances to win this US Open because of, well, how Sabalenka's been playing. I thought if Pagula can bring her level, she can beat that Sabalenka that we've seen over the past few months. The problem is she's going into this match and Sabalenka's playing the better tennis now.

48:06Sabalenka was way better than Pagula was today and has been this tournament and I think Pagula is going to need to find her serve. She's going to need to try and hope that Sabalenka gets a bit stressed out again because if it just comes down to the way they've been playing in the last couple of matches, I do think Sabalenka will take it. But look, incredible from Pagula to put herself in this position again. She constantly shows up at this tournament, gets to the latter stages and here we are again.

48:40David Law:The last three matches that these two have played, Sabalenka and Pagula, have gone three sets. Right. And Pagula has won two of the three. And that's exactly why I've thought that she could win a slam, because she can beat the best players in the world. Sabalenka has been that, and Pagula has beaten her. Rebacan has been a bit more of an obstacle for her, but, you know, she's right there with them. She needs it to be her night. But what we saw from Sabalenka today was a bit ominous, I think. Yes, yeah. And beating a player like Noskova and being tested like that and coming through is probably just what she needed.

49:19David Law:Well, that concludes the most incredible day here at the US Open. But we're going to be back to do it all again in just a few hours. It's 5 to 5 in the morning at the moment. So the next raft of matches will start in what? Six and a half hours. Yeah. We've got to sleep between that. Anyway. And we've got to get back to Manhattan. Yes, we have. But anyway, we're going to go and have a brief break and be back in part three to look ahead to today's order of play. Welcome back to part three. And today's order of play starts in six and a half hours. and it begins with another incredible story on both sides of the net.

50:03You've got the returning Jung-Chin Wen, who we've seen win two sets in the last two matches from Love 5 Down.

50:11David Law:This is a woman who is ranked 121 in the world at the moment and has been off the circuit because of bad injury and she qualified for this tournament and here she is in the quarterfinals. Quite extraordinary. She's playing Elena Rivakina, who has won the Australian Open this year. And if she wins this tennis match, she becomes the world number one for the first time in her life. So the stakes are quite high. World number one is on the line in six and a half hours. What is happening? When are we going to get sleep? When does that happen? We don't. I mean, I was going to say we don't need it, but we do need it.

50:51Oh, we do. It's just that we don't need it now, Because we need to be back and watching that match and covering it here for the tennis podcast. Fascinating match, isn't it? So, Rabakina, Jung Chin Wen, who do you feel is the favourite for that? I do think it's Rabakina. She has played the cleanest tennis match I've seen all tournament from anyone in either draw in her previous round against Naomi Osaka. And I know it was a compromise, Naomi Osaka, but the back in her was so good, like sublime. Her serve, her ground strokes, just dominating the court. And I do think she'll win. But we've seen Jung have some success against her even this year in terms of taking sets off her.

51:41There's enough there in the match-up for Jung.

51:46And maybe there's this, I don't know, just this force around Jung Shin-wen and this belief she's got from coming back from the brink so many times and the way she carries herself and feels like she belongs, she does belong back on this stage. Perhaps that will get her through, but if I'm just thinking about the tennis, I think Jung is more up and down and she's played, you know, she's been five love down in those sets. Like, she's played some bad tennis in those matches, particularly against Keys. And I... With Rabatkinu's serve, I can't see her losing a lead like that, for example. So I'm leaning Rabatkinu in that one.

52:29But, you know, she'll be aware of the world number one being on the line, and she's made no secret of the fact that she's desperate for that. And maybe some nerves could come in there. It's an incredible match to have first off.

52:42David Law:It's not just tennis, though, is it, for Rubacchina? This being on the line, world number one, we don't know if that will affect her adversely. What I would say, she served her way to Grand Slam titles, so I believe she's able to compartmentalise. She's starting to play well. She doesn't seem to be having any ill effects from the injury that made her retire in Cincinnati. I would also go Rubacchina. That is going to be followed by Coco Goff against Mira Andrava. Then we've got Alexander Blocks against Karen Hashanov. And then the night session features Alexander Zverev against Botek van der Zanschorp.

53:24David Law:Give me your three winners of those three matches, Matt. I'm going to go Goff. I'm going to go Hashanov because I'm worried about Blocks physically. And I'm going to go Zverev. Yeah, I'll go with the same for all of those. And I do think we're going to be in for an incredible semifinal lineup. I mean, particularly on all the women's semifinals, both of them will be fantastic. I think Tiafou against Shelton is perfectly set up. I do think that Zverev against either Blox or Hachinov is the least interesting, really. but generally speaking the tournament is very well set up for a fantastic finale.

54:13Yeah, absolutely. And look, I think it's interesting how things shift now for Zverev as well with Alcaraz gone.

54:19David Law:That's true, yeah. You know, like he was already the top seed but let's not beat around the bush. Like everyone knows that Carlos Alcaraz's best tennis is the best and we were thinking maybe we were going to keep seeing that. But Zverev now, he's already got the first slam off his back. Does he really kind of relax into that role and take it from here? Or does he still feel the pressure of trying to get over the line as the top seed? He's got quite a comfy side of the draw that he's in, but he knows there'll be an American coming at him in the final. That'll be a new situation for him to deal with.

54:58Or he's got good records against them. Very good records, yeah. So there's real intrigue there.

55:03David Law:Yeah, it'll be fascinating no matter what. Tell you what's also fascinating no matter what, and that's Leo, our Grand Slam US Open mascot, who never fails to give us an amazing picture. It was my birthday this week, and Leo apparently sees me as something of an inspiration, it says here, and he's been trying to study the art of positivity. And there's a picture of him here with the book Relentless Optimism. You've got to love it. And lesson number one is you never know. Apparently. That has been the story of the year, really. That's right. That's right. So thank you very much, Leo, for being our US Open mascot.

55:48We'd also like to say a big thanks to our own mascots, Bodhi for Catherine, my wonderful Maisie, who I love very much, Big Roger for Matt. But we'd like to say a big thanks to our top folks and executive producers, Greg, Chris and Jeff. We saw Chris again today. Chris hand-delivered some snacks for us, didn't he? Chris. What a legend. Like an angel just appeared. I was literally thinking, I have not got enough snacks for the evening session. We were in set one at the time of Shelton against Alcaraz, weren't we? No, I think we were still in the women's match. Were we? Yeah, I think we were still in the women's match.

56:31And I was thinking, well, the media restaurant's closed. Like, there's food around, but it's meals. I need snacks. Where am I going to get snacks? And Chris just appeared with chocolate and sweets. And I worked my way through it through all four and a half hours of Alcaraz Shelton. Thank you so much, Chris. Superb. Look, there's no shout-outs tonight because it's three minutes past five in the morning. I hope you do understand. however we are part of the athletic podcast network and delighted to be so and before we go we do want to remind that if you're an nfl fan the athletic has something really exciting this week the athletic live presented by google gemini it's a brand new youtube watch along on nfl game days which start by the way tomorrow with my well later today with my uh beloved seattle seahawks in action uh so i might get involved in that as well it features the biggest and best beat report as the athletic has to offer you can even become part of the show in the interactive chat on youtube and it's all about to get underway so enjoy it matt i think we better i think we better get to bed it's five in the morning we got the the rest of the tennis the the next batch of matches starts in six and a half hours yeah i mean look we've had a we've had an amazing day obviously it goes without saying it's insane that that match was happening at half of three in the morning.

58:00Insane. Yes.

58:01David Law:But we've still enjoyed it and we hope you've enjoyed the tennis podcast. We'll be back tomorrow. Make sure you're with us.