U.S. Open finalist Ben Shelton struggled to dominate with his serve and was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by 24th-ranked Jiri Lehecka on Friday as the Czech Republic drew level 1-1 with the United States in the last qualifying round for the Davis Cup Final 8.<\/p>\n
Lehecka broke Shelton\u2019s serve early in each set on the indoor hard court at Prague\u2019s O2 Arena.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Learner Tien beat Jakub Mensik 6-2, 6-4 in his Davis Cup debut to give the 32-time champion Americans a 1-0 lead. <\/p>\n
Tien had only 15 unforced errors to Mensik\u2019s 34.<\/p>\n
Shelton, who is up to a career-high No. 4 in the rankings after his U.S. Open run, dropped to 0-3 for his career in the Davis Cup.<\/p>\n
In his only previous action in the competition, he lost both singles and doubles matches (with partner Tommy Paul) as the U.S. was beaten by Australia in the 2024 quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Doubles and reverse singles are scheduled for Saturday in the best-of-five match series.<\/p>\n
The winning team advances to the Final 8 in Bologna, Italy, in November.<\/p>\n
It was Shelton\u2019s first match since losing to Alexander Zverev in New York on Sunday in his first Grand Slam final.<\/p>\n
South Korea nears Asian success<\/p>\n
South Korea moved within one victory of becoming the first Asian nation to reach the Final 8 after taking a 2-0 lead over India.<\/p>\n
The South Koreans came from a set down in both matches.<\/p>\n
Kwon Soon-woo beat Dhakshineswar Suresh 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 and then Hyeon Chung defeated Sumit Nagal 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 at Seoul\u2019s Olympic tennis center.<\/p>\n
Austria and Belgium were tied 1-1.<\/p>\n
The other matchups of teams competing for spots to join host and three-time defending champion Italy at the finals are: Chile vs. Spain; Germany vs. Croatia; Britain vs. Ecuador; and Canada vs. France.<\/p>\n
Zverev is scheduled to play for Germany, which hosts Croatia in Halle on Saturday and Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Final 8 format was introduced in 2022.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here <\/p>\n
Andrew Dampf, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Open finalist Ben Shelton struggled to dominate with his serve and was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by 24th-ranked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-900718","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\/900718","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=900718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}