Alex Michelsen had not dropped a set in this tournament. He went two sets up on Frances Tiafoe and took an early break in the third, and the US Open account posted that he was one set from a first Grand Slam semifinal. He did not win another set. Tiafoe came back to win 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 in a quarterfinal that ran more than four and a half hours on Arthur Ashe Stadium and finished in a 10-point match tiebreak, which Tiafoe took 10-6.
What made the first half of the match so one-sided was Tiafoe’s serve, which was barely functioning. His first-serve percentage sat below 40 percent across the first three sets, according to CBS Sports, and Michelsen simply stepped in on the second ball. He broke in the third game of the match, took the first set 7-5, and broke twice more in a 6-3 second set in which his own serve gave him free points that Tiafoe’s was not giving back.
The third set was where it went. Michelsen broke early again and was in front for a third consecutive set, and this time Tiafoe broke back and broke again to take it 7-5 — on a first serve that had still not arrived. From there Michelsen, who is 21 and had spent six days winning without losing a set, was defending rather than dictating for the first time in the fortnight. Tiafoe took the fourth 6-3 and the fifth came down to the deciding tiebreak, the second of three played on Ashe that day.
Tiafoe had been in this position at majors before and had almost never come out of it. He was 2-17 in completed Grand Slam matches after losing the first two sets, and 0-4 at the US Open, per CBS Sports. “It was definitely a Braveheart type win,” Tiafoe said in his press conference, and he pushed back on the idea that the history had been in his head.
He said he was not thinking about how many tough ones he had lost, only about staying in the moment because it was a quarterfinal of a Slam. The two men held a long embrace at the net, Michelsen in tears. Tiafoe said afterwards that he had gone up there simply to acknowledge his younger compatriot and had not expected it to last as long as it did.
It is Tiafoe’s third US Open semifinal, after 2022 and 2024. He plays Ben Shelton, who beat Carlos Alcaraz in five sets in the match that followed this one and did not finish until 3:33 in the morning. Both halves of the all-American semifinal were therefore settled by five-set matches inside the same session.
Whoever wins it will be the first American man in a US Open final since 2006, and can end a Grand Slam title drought for American men that has run since Andy Roddick won here in 2003. Michelsen leaves New York with the best major result of his career. He had beaten Brandon Nakashima to reach the second week and had not been pushed to a fifth set until this one.
Related coverage: Frances Tiafoe profile · Alex Michelsen profile · Michelsen’s win over Nakashima · Shelton beats Alcaraz in five
