{"id":418266,"date":"2026-01-20T07:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T07:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/418266\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T07:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T07:39:08","slug":"ben-shelton-tops-ugo-humbert-in-early-australian-open-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/418266\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Shelton tops Ugo Humbert in early Australian Open test"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan 20, 2026, 01:24 AM ET<\/p>\n

MELBOURNE, Australia — In a match between left-handers, American Ben Shelton<\/a> overcame Ugo Humbert<\/a> of France 6-3, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (5) to reach the second round of the Australian Open on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Shelton was a semifinalist a year ago here and was also semifinalist at the US Open in 2023.<\/p>\n

Eighth-seeded Shelton said it was one of the toughest first-round matches he could have faced with Humbert ranked No. 33. If Humbert was ranked 32nd or better he would not have faced a seeded player in the opening round.<\/p>\n

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“I thought I stayed really calm today,” Shelton said. “On a court like this, playing Ugo in the first round is a tough draw. I felt I found some of my better tennis late in the match.”<\/p>\n

In other men’s matches, fifth-seeded Lorenzo Musetti<\/a> advanced when Raphael Collignon<\/a> of Belgium retired in the fourth set. The result was 4-6, 7-6 (3), 7-5, 3-2 when the Belgian player quit due to reported cramping and dizziness.<\/p>\n

In a night match, two-time defending men’s champion Jannik Sinner<\/a> was set to face Hugo Gaston<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan 20, 2026, 01:24 AM ET MELBOURNE, Australia — In a match between left-handers, American Ben Shelton overcame…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-418266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}