By Shrivathsa Sridhar<\/p>\n
NEW YORK, Sept 6 (Reuters) \u2013 Eighth seed Ben Shelton outshone Stefanos Tsitsipas under the U.S. Open spotlight on Sunday, sealing a 6-2 6-3 6-4 victory to \u200breach the quarter-finals and boost home hopes of a first \u200cAmerican men\u2019s Grand Slam champion in more than two decades.<\/p>\n
Shelton next faces Carlos Alcaraz and the 23-year-old showed he has the tools to trouble the Spaniard, though he said that it would take special tennis to beat \u200cthe \u200bdefending champion who has hit top form \u2060after an injury layoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe level \u2060that he\u2019s playing at is really impressive. To not play for almost five months and do what he\u2019s doing is superhuman and we\u2019re happy to have him back,\u201d Shelton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe \u200blights up stadiums and I think there\u2019s going to be fireworks again on Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shelton blended raw power with a delicate touch \u2060and sharp decision-making to overwhelm Tsitsipas \u2060in an opening set that lasted only 31 minutes \u200bon Arthur Ashe Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy team told me that if I didn\u2019t \u200bshow up fully focused they would leave,\u201d joked Shelton, \u200cwho is bidding to become the first U.S. man to win a major since Andy Roddick\u2019s 2003 triumph at Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was focused, it was a good match from start to finish. It \u2060was my first straightforward match this year and I\u2019m happy I can play this way in front of you.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you play on this court \u2060every year, it \u200cfeels like you start over again and the \u2060nerves hit. I finally found my groove and \u200bwas \u200cin a flow state. Playing on the greatest \u200bcourt in \u2060the world is an unbelievable feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a two-set cushion, Shelton sprinkled some showmanship into the clash in the next with a soaring overhead smash before racing away and completing an emphatic win with a comfortable hold of serve.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in New York; Editing \u200bby Peter Rutherford)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Shrivathsa Sridhar NEW YORK, Sept 6 (Reuters) \u2013 Eighth seed Ben Shelton outshone Stefanos Tsitsipas under the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-886238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886238","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=886238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}