Under the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium, Ben Shelton looked nothing like a man carrying American hopes on his shoulders. Not at first.
The eighth seed was flat, jittery, and a step slow, swept aside 6-1 in a brutal opening set by Tallon Griekspoor on Monday night. The errors piled up — 14 unforced in all, two of them double faults — and he held serve just once as the Dutchman tore through the set in under half an hour.
For a player chasing history, it was a grim start.
Shelton, aiming to become the first American man to win the U.S. Open since 2003, has worn the weight of expectation all season. His Grand Slam results have lagged behind the hype, even as he reminded the tour of his ceiling by successfully defending his Canadian Open title earlier this month. New York was supposed to be where it all came together.
For a set, it threatened to unravel instead.
“I started off a little bit nervous tonight, but I found my rhythm at some point through the second set,” Shelton said afterward, and you could see the moment that rhythm arrived. The serve that had misfired suddenly locked in. The forehand began to bite. The court, which had looked enormous for Griekspoor and claustrophobic for Shelton, flipped in scale.
Second Set
The second set became a statement.
Shelton broke three times, tore into returns, and turned the match on its head with a 6-1 response of his own. The American’s first-strike tennis, missing in action early, finally showed up. Griekspoor, who came in brimming with confidence after his upset of top seed Alexander Zverev in Montreal, suddenly found himself scrambling.
“Obviously, a lot of credit to Tallon, he's a good player to play, he doesn’t give you a lot of rhythm,” Shelton said. “He has an attacking game style and I found things really difficult for the first set tonight.”
The Dutchman’s aggression had rattled him early. Once Shelton matched that intent, the contest tightened.
Third Set
The third set became a knife-edge. Games stayed close, neither man giving much away on serve. Griekspoor kept stepping inside the baseline, looking to dictate, while Shelton leaned on his lefty delivery and heavy forehand to fend off any real danger.
It came down to a tiebreak, and that was where the tension cracked — on Griekspoor’s side.
The pressure finally told. Errors crept into the Dutchman’s game at the worst possible time, his sixth double fault of the night handing Shelton the breaker 7-3 and, with it, a stranglehold on the match. The roar from the Ashe crowd said it plainly: the top American in the men’s draw had arrived.
From there, Shelton didn’t just close the door. He slammed it.
He raced to a 4-0 lead in the fourth set, swarming the baseline, stepping into returns, and playing with the kind of freedom that had been missing in that ragged opening. Griekspoor, who had looked so sharp early, now chased shadows and scoreboard pressure.
Shelton never let him back in. The 1-6 6-1 7-6(3) 6-2 scoreline told the story of a match that swung wildly, then settled under the control of the higher seed.
It was not flawless. It did not need to be. What it showed, on the tournament’s biggest court, was resilience — and a gear shift when the stakes rose.
Next comes Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz in the second round, a sterner, more structured test. If Shelton wants to keep this New York run alive, and keep that long American wait in play, he cannot afford another start like this.
But if he can bottle what came after that first set, the rest of the field will feel him coming.
