Playing in his first tournament in four months following a wrist injury, No. 2 seed Carlos Alcaraz has shown no signs of rust at the U.S. Open, breezing into the quarterfinals with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 victory over No. 20 seed Tommy Paul on Sunday in New York.
Alcaraz, a seven-time Grand Slam winner and defending U.S. Open champion, has dropped just one set over his first four matches. The 23-year-old Spanish star and world No. 3 broke the 29-year-old American’s serve to clinch the first set, broke him again twice early in the second set and once again early in the third en route to the two-hour, 21-minute victory.
Paul finished with one more ace (4-3) and one fewer double fault (2-1), but Alcaraz nearly doubled him in winners (33-18) and saved three of four break points, while Paul saved 10 of 14. The Spaniard also won 75% of his first-serve points (42 of 56).
Alcaraz leads the head-to-head series 7-2 and has defeated Paul at all four Grand Slam events, becoming only the 10th man to achieve that feat in the Open Era.
“I played my game. I tried to play my style,” Alcaraz said in his on-court interview. “Tommy is such a talented player. His shots are pretty dangerous and sometimes it is really difficult to control the ball when it comes to you. I just tried to be ready for a battle and tried to be aggressive all the time.
“I tried not to let him stay (high up) on the court and I think I did pretty well to put so much pressure on return games, which for me helped a lot to play relaxed, to play calm and think clearly. I’m really happy with the performance today.”
Alcaraz has won 18 straight matches at majors, a personal high that includes his 2025 U.S. Open win and January’s Australian Open title, which made him the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam.
“I think so,” Alcaraz told reporters when asked if he felt he was back to 100% physically. “I didn’t expect to reach (at least) the quarterfinals here every year since 2021, so that shows how special this place is to me. It shows how good I play every time I come here. It doesn’t matter that I was out for four and a half months: Every time that I come here, I play my best.”
Alcaraz, who is 26-3 this season, will face No. 8 seed Ben Shelton in a quarterfinal Tuesday after the American took care of Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quickest men’s match of the day, a 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 win in 1 hour, 52 minutes.
After Shelton dropped one set in each of his first three matches, he dominated his Round of 16 match, finishing with 12 aces and one double fault, hitting 72% of his first serves and winning 80% of his service points while facing no break points.
“My team told me if I didn’t show up fully focused today that they were going to leave,” Shelton said on-court when asked what the difference was in this match. “I think it was all in my head. I was focused today, played a complete match from start to finish. Really happy with this performance.”
The 2023 U.S. Open semifinalist had nearly twice as many winners (32) as unforced errors (17) and broke serve four times in six opportunities. He’s riding serious momentum into his match against Alcaraz, who is 3-0 against Shelton all-time. One of those wins came at a Grand Slam, in the 2025 French Open Round of 16.
“Special tennis,” Shelton said of what it will take to oust Alcaraz. “I think the level that he’s been playing at is really impressive. To not play for five months, come out and do what he does so far this tournament has been superhuman. … I think it’s going to be fireworks on Tuesday night.”
No. 11 seed Frances Tiafoe continued his dominance at the second-biggest U.S. Open venue, Louis Armstrong Stadium, with a 7-6 (1), 6-4, 7-6 (6) defeat of seventh-seeded Russian Daniil Medvedev to reach the quarterfinals for the fourth time in his career.
The win was Tiafoe’s 25th hard-court victory of the season — the most on tour — and improved his all-time record at Louis Armstrong to 10-0.
“It has been amazing playing on this court, the energy man,” Tiafoe said after finishing the sweep. “It is like the people’s court. I am loving the energy for sure.”
Tiafoe has found strong form since needing to rally for a five-set win in his opening match, winning each of the last three in straight sets. This three-setter, though, required nearly three hours for Tiafoe, who had more unforced errors (32) than winners (31) and finished with just one more break (five to Medvedev’s four).
He was particularly opportunistic on his opponent’s second serve, winning 63% of those points to beat Medvedev for just the second time in the last eight matches.
Medvedev, a former world No. 1 and 2021 U.S. Open champion, has not reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal since the 2024 U.S. Open.
Tiafoe, a semifinalist at the U.S. Open in 2022 and 2024, will aim to make it three trips in five years when he faces fellow American Alex Michelsen, who pulled off another upset Sunday, beating 27th-seeded Argentine Tomas Martin Etcheverry 7-6 (6), 6-4, 6-4.
The unseeded 22-year-old is through to a Grand Slam quarterfinal for the first time in his career.
Michelsen broke Etcheverry in his first service game of each of the first two sets, overcoming seven double faults with 12 aces. He saved 4 of 5 break-point chances while converting 3 of 4 on his opponent’s serve. He’s been broken just three total times and not yet dropped a set through four matches in this event.
“We’ve been working really hard to get to this point and I’m really happy but not super surprised because of all the work I put in my whole life,” Michelsen said after the win.
Tiafoe is 2-0 all-time against Michelsen, with a win each of the last two years. This will mark their first Grand Slam matchup.
–Field Level Media
