{"id":23668,"date":"2025-07-25T18:36:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T18:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23668\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T18:36:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T18:36:04","slug":"frances-tiafoe-predicts-who-the-crowd-will-be-cheering-for-when-he-faces-ben-shelton-at-the-washington-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23668\/","title":{"rendered":"Frances Tiafoe predicts who the crowd will be cheering for when he faces Ben Shelton at the Washington Open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Citi Open fans are in for a treat as two of the ATP\u2019s most exciting players will go head-to-head.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/ben-shelton\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Shelton<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/frances-tiafoe\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Frances Tiafoe<\/a>, the American number two and three respectively, will face one another for the fourth time.<\/p>\n<p>Each of their previous three meetings have taken place on home soil and that remains the case as the duo will do battle in America\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n<p>A place in the semifinals is at stake and fans in attendance will be treated to an entertaining contest between Tiafoe and Shelton.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2226392419-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton interact during a men's double match against Matthew Ebden and John Peers on day 1 of the Mubadala Citi DC Open 2025 at William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center.\" class=\"wp-image-113956\" \/>Photo by Scott Taetsch\/Getty ImagesFrances Tiafoe thinks the crowd will cheer for both him and Ben Shelton at the Citi Open<\/p>\n<p>Both Tiafoe and Shelton are yet to win an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/atp\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ATP Tour<\/a> title in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>They are hoping to change that at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/news\/wta-mubadala-citi-dc-open-2025-preview-tournament-schedule-top-players-and-prize-money\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Open<\/a>, but they have to go through each other in order to keep their chances of success alive.<\/p>\n<p>The pair have developed reputations for being characteristic performers who entertain crowds with their elite shotmaking.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>It remains to be seen who the spectators will favour during the match, but Tiafoe thinks both players will receive some love.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, obviously, I mean, they\u2019ll be cheering for him, but let\u2019s pump the brakes,\u201d Tiafoe chuckled. \u201cI think a lot of the crowd will still be for me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously he will get a lot of support, no question, but the crowd will definitely be going my way. I\u2019m not too worried about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2173702590-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton play doubles together at the 2024 Laver Cup\" class=\"wp-image-49214\" \/>Photo by Clive Brunskill\/Getty Images for Laver CupFrances Tiafoe describes his relationship with Ben Shelton before their Citi Open match<\/p>\n<p>Shelton and Tiafoe are part of a successful period of men\u2019s tennis in America.<\/p>\n<p>Four men from the United States are ranked inside the top 20 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/taylor-fritz\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Taylor Fritz<\/a> became the first ATP player from his country to reach a Grand Slam final since 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Both Tiafoe and Shelton, who each have two major semifinals to their names, are hoping to make history for their country.<\/p>\n<p>As they push one another to do so, Shelton and Tiafoe have maintained a great relationship, which the world number 11 described ahead of their next match.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are such good friends. Our girlfriends finally met. Yeah, we have had a lot of battles obviously. Davis Cup, Laver Cup. We hang out. We have fun together always,\u201d Tiafoe added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re in a battle, man. With that friendship, we have a great rivalry, and we don\u2019t want to lose to each other. We have a lot of bragging rights when we\u2019re talking s**t. It\u2019s great, man. It\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Citi Open fans are in for a treat as two of the ATP\u2019s most exciting players will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[6733,19369,49,48,19370,16006,82,593,9581],"class_list":{"0":"post-23668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-ben-shelton","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-citi-open","13":"tag-frances-tiafoe","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tennis","16":"tag-washington-open"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}