The men’s singles semifinal match at the US Open in New York began on Friday, September 8. The first couple was court owner Ben Shelton, 20, and 23-time TBS champion, 36-year-old Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic. The tennis community has already called this matchup a battle of youth versus experience.
The 20-year-old left-hander with African-American roots on his father’s side made his major debut only at last year’s US Open and has already shown an incredible result at the 2023 Australian Open, reaching the quarterfinals. The young American talent, on his way to his first semi-final in New York, consistently beat Argentine representative Pedro Kachin, US Open 2020 champion Dominic Thiem of Austria and Russian Aslan Karatsev. In addition, Ben in the American derby turned out to be stronger than his most famous compatriots: Tommy Paul and Francis Tiafoe. In all matches, Shelton lost one game, except in the second round match: Tim retired at the beginning of the second set. Let’s add that 18 months ago the American started the season only in position 572 in the ATP ranking, and after the US Open 2023 advance he will definitely be among the twenty strongest tennis players on the planet.
Djokovic, in turn, advanced more confidently in the tournament standings, except in the third round match against Djere. The second racket in the world in the Serbian derby with Laszlo had to leave even with an unpleasant 0-2 in sets! In all other matches, the famous Belgrade native had no problems, successively defeating the Frenchman Alexander Muller, the Spanish Bernabé Zapata-Miralles, Borna Goyo (Croatia) and Taylor Fritz (USA). The victory over the latter was Novak’s 250th victory over an active top 10 player. At 36 years old, the Serbian became the oldest participant in the semifinals of the American Slam. At the same time, Djokovic has phenomenal statistics against the Americans: he does not lose to the representatives of this country for 30 matches in a row.
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In the next fight, the young American talent had nothing to lose: he had already exceeded all the expectations of ordinary fans and a number of experts. This is what Ben himself said on the eve of the fight with a formidable opponent, highlighting his most important advantage.
“Winning a match against Novak is a difficult task. Whenever you go into a match with someone who has competed at this level many times and come out victorious, you can’t get it out of your head. You just know how strong your opponent is, mentally and physically. So I definitely need to prepare a plan. But I have one advantage: Novak will play with someone he has never met before on the court. I think I can offer you something that maybe you wouldn’t see in a normal tour game. Hopefully it’s pretty effective,” Shelton said at a news conference.
At the same time, the main question arose: will the debutant from the semifinals of the Major be able to impose a worthy resistance to the great Serbian? Seven-time Grand Slam champion and former world number one Justine Henin shared her expectations ahead of the match.
“We all want to see the battle. We want Shelton to be able to stump Novak with his tennis. It’s not that we don’t want to see Djokovic win, we’re just looking forward to this matchup, this clash of styles.
Can Shelton maintain his carefree attitude? It seems like she’s already on her way to achieving it. He has already expended a lot of physical energy, so it can be said that he has worked hard at it.
At the same time, Djokovic, with his pride, will want to show young people that he has the physics and genius to win,” Eurosport quotes Henin.
The first head-to-head battle between the tennis players began with both serving with confidence. However, it was local talent that was the first to break tradition. In the sixth game, the American frankly failed, making a series of unforced errors: the 23-time TBS champion took a 3-2 lead. Novak, of course, did not forgive such mistakes and confidently closed the set with a score of 6:3. It is worth noting that Djokovic performed almost without problems, he was comfortable with the style of his opponent, who, although he tried to play interestingly and attack, often going to the net, made too many inaccuracies. During the first game, Ben had up to 15 of them, while Novak only had four. Shelton felt that he was losing to his star opponent in the baseline game, he tried to reduce the number of shots, but actually got buried with his inaccurate actions.
Ben Shelton
Photo: Al Bello/Getty Images
Many experts noted that Ben was not at all impressive in his quarterfinal match against Francis Tiafoe, while Novak had a very strong match with Taylor Fritz. These moments could not help but be reflected in the US Open semifinal match. In the second set, the picture of the game practically did not change: Shelton could not create difficulties for the Serbian with two main trump cards: a great forehand and a powerful serve. As in the first game, Ben did not hold his serve in the fifth game and again gave the advantage to his formidable opponent almost from the beginning of the game: Djokovic again led with a score of 3: 2. The 23-time Slam champion, on the other hand, nailed almost everything on the court. With the score 3:2 in his favor, for example, he won 9 (!) out of 11 balls on the first serve. Novak played the game calmly and made clever combinations of it. At the end of the set, the 20-year-old Atlanta native let himself be broken again and in the end the number two in the men’s world ranking closed the set with a score of 6:2.
Novak Djokovic
Photo: Al Bello/Getty Images
After the next match, Shelton went to rest in the grandstand room and think about plan “B” in the match with Djokovic. The American talent definitely needed to change something in his game and find other ways to deal with the 36-year-old Belgrade native. From the stands, Ben’s father advised his son to play her opponent more often with a backhand (Novak’s powerful weapon). Already in the first game of the set, one of the main problems of the racket number 47 in the world in the confrontation with the Serb became visible: Shelton could not hold the first hit after the serve and very often played after him from a deep position. and strong. position. This circumstance allowed the great Serbian to play competently in the reception at the beginning of the third set, achieving a break for 1:0. Then the tennis players won games with their serve until the score was 4:3. It’s worth giving Ben credit: he didn’t throw the white flag, he fought and still managed a reverse break 4-4.
In the ninth game of the third game, the American performed a forehand of incredible beauty and speed, which delighted the home crowd. Shelton took the lead for the first time in this match and even had a set point on the return, but Djokovic, being a great champion, pulled himself together and delivered a great serve at a crucial moment. In the end, Novak survived the most difficult game, tied the score and a few minutes later took the lead, achieving a break at 6:5. The great Serbian only had to serve for the match, but in this game he created problems for himself. The 23-time Slam champion first fought off two break points, then had a match point, but made a couple of errors (including performing his least favorite smash on a break point) and allowed the court owner to escape from an almost desperate position. and return to the fight – 6:5. At the same time, in the tiebreaker the Serbian demonstrated his superiority and put an end to his inflexible opponent by 6: 3, 6: 2, 7: 6 (4) in 2 hours 39 minutes.
Having scored the winning point, Novak could not deny himself the pleasure of imitating his opponent. The Serbian copied Ben Shelton’s traditional hand gesture, imitating a cell phone call. Thus, Djokovic, 36, reached his 36th final at TBS and his 10th in New York. In the fight for the title, Novak will play with the winner of the pair Carlos Alcaraz (Spain) – Daniil Medvedev (Russia).
