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    Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe Set for All-American Quarterfinal

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    Here’s what to know about the singles match between Shelton and Tiafoe, two of the three American men remaining in the U.S. Open.The men’s semifinals at the U.S. Open are guaranteed to include at least one American.That’s because 10th-seeded Frances Tiafoe and unseeded Ben Shelton will play for one of the final four spots when they meet in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. Their match features two of the three American men remaining in the tournament. The other is ninth-seeded Taylor Fritz, who will play second-seeded Novak Djokovic of Serbia in another quarterfinal on Tuesday. It is the first time since 2005 that three American men have advanced this far in singles at the Open.Tiafoe and Shelton have not played each other as professionals. Tiafoe reached the semifinals at last year’s Open. And while Shelton will be playing in the U.S. Open quarterfinals for the first time, he reached the Australian Open quarterfinals in January, losing to his fellow American Tommy Paul.Here’s what to know about the match.How did they get here?Tiafoe has dropped only one set in four matches. He had straight-sets wins against Learner Tien of the United States and Sebastian Ofner of Austria. In the third round, he faced Adrian Mannarino, a 22nd-seeded Frenchman, who took the first set. But Tiafoe won in four sets even as Mannarino gave him trouble, pushing a tiebreaker in the fourth set.Tiafoe cruised in the fourth round in another straight-sets victory, this time against Rinky Hijikata of Australia.Shelton has played more matches than Tiafoe at the U.S. Open. In addition to men’s singles, Shelton played, and lost, in the first round of the men’s doubles draw. He also won his quarterfinals match on Monday with his partner, Taylor Townsend.Shelton’s serve has reached 149 miles per hour twice at this U.S. Open.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesShelton defeated Pedro Cachin of Argentina in the first round in four sets, then caught a break in the second round when his opponent, Dominic Thiem of Austria, retired in the second set with what appeared to be a stomach-related issue.He then beat Aslan Karatsev of Russia in four sets and upset Paul, also in four sets.Beware of Shelton’s serve.One of Shelton’s best tools is his powerful serve. In his fourth-round match, he fired a 149-miles-per-hour ace against Paul. The serve has been the fastest at this tournament so far.“He’s throwing his whole arm in that thing,” Tiafoe said on Sunday.But Tiafoe can serve well, too. In his third-round match against Hijikata, Tiafoe had 15 aces, including two back to back in the second set that were clocked at 129 and 134 m.p.h.Still, Tiafoe acknowledged on Sunday that Shelton was more than a big serve. Shelton hits solid volleys, isn’t afraid to come to the net and plays with a lot of energy, Tiafoe said.“He’s going to throw the kitchen sink at me,” Tiafoe said.Keep an eye on Tiafoe’s drop shot.Among Tiafoe’s tools is a sneaky drop shot that he likes to use at the right moment. While his drop shot can be tough for his opponents to return, Tiafoe says he tries not to use it too often.“Because then they’re looking for it,” he said.Part of what makes playing Tiafoe difficult is that he can be unpredictable, mixing his drop shots with slices and play at the net. In his fourth-round match, Tiafoe fired an ace at 135 m.p.h. He followed it with a drop shot.Whether it’s with a two-handed backhand or a drop shot, Tiafoe wants to keep his opponent on his toes.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times“It’s more fun when you’re out there just using your head and using different stuff and keeping your opponent on their toes,” he said.Aware of that, Shelton on Sunday described Tiafoe as “a nightmare to deal with.”“He’s just one of those guys where it’s must-see TV,” Shelton said of Tiafoe. “You want to watch him play all the time. He kind of has that Carlos Alcaraz effect, especially here in New York. This is his place where he really wants to show up.”Tiafoe has been here before.A quarterfinal match at the U.S. Open will be a first for Shelton, who said that reaching the final eight of the tournament had been a dream of his since he was a child.Tiafoe reached the semifinals last year, losing to Alcaraz. After coming so close to the final last year, he will be eager to have another shot.“I want to be playing my best tennis here,” Tiafoe said after his third-round match. “That’s ultimately what matters.”Taylor Fritz or Novak Djokovic await.The winner of Tuesday’s match will face Fritz or Djokovic, the 23-time Grand Slam champion, in the semifinals on Friday. Djokovic is heavily favored to win in the quarterfinals, but Fritz reached the final eight without dropping a set.Djokovic has won three of his four matches in straight sets, but he ran into trouble in the third round against his fellow countryman Laslo Djere, who took the first two sets before losing in five. More

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      At the U.S. Open, It Feels Like the Fourth of July

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      A decade or so ago, back when Tommy Paul, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe were rowdy teenagers raising hell at the United States Tennis Association dormitories in Florida, they dreamed that days like Sunday at the U.S. Open would eventually come.Coco Gauff and Ben Shelton were barely 10 years old back then, still figuring out how large a role tennis was going to play in their childhoods, though it was a safe bet it would be pretty large.Flash forward to Sunday at the U.S. Open, and those five players were at the center of what figured to be a daylong American tennis festival in the fourth round, a part of the tournament when, for so long, especially on the men’s side, players from Europe have filled the starring roles. Not on Sunday, when the year’s final Grand Slam tournament got down to serious business and the round of 16.With Ben Shelton facing Tommy Paul, it guaranteed an American would advance to the quarterfinals. It ended up being Shelton.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThe schedule featured wall-to-wall red, white and blue; Black and white and mixed race players; players from wealthy families (Fritz), from more humble means (Shelton, Gauff, Paul), and one (Tiafoe) who started with almost nothing; some players with years of tour experience and one so raw (Shelton) that he needed to get a passport last year so he could leave the United States for the first time to play in the Australian Open.“We always believed this would happen,” said Martin Blackman, the general manager for player development at the U.S.T.A., who has known all five players since their early years. “But you never know when.”When Serena Williams, a majestic and groundbreaking figure in sports and culture for more than two decades, retired from pro tennis at this tournament last year, she left big questions about who might begin to fill the massive void she was leaving, especially in American tennis. Some pretty good hints arrived within days. Gauff and Tiafoe — charismatic figures with bright eyes and big smiles who play with equal parts heart, skill and athleticism — blazed into the deep end of the 2022 tournament, the quarterfinals for Gauff and the semifinals for Tiafoe.That was last year, though, and there was no guarantee that they or any of their compatriots would reproduce the magic of some of those days. Sunday represented a decent midpoint indicator.Looking at the draw in the middle of last week, Fritz’s eyes drifted to the quarter just above him, where Shelton, Paul and Tiafoe were crowded together. Some big names were out, and his people were still very much alive. Immediately he thought, “One of them is going to be in the semis,” and that was pretty cool.Paul won the third set after losing the first two, but he could not force a decisive fifth set.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesPaul and Shelton got the action rolling at noon Sunday in the opening match at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The stands were filling up more with every changeover, getting louder each time Shelton’s booming serve put up big numbers on the radar gun.Two adrenaline-fueled blasts clocked in at 149 miles per hour as he built a commanding two-set lead before Paul came alive with the crowd rallying behind him. The stadium was near its capacity of 23,000 by the time his last forehand sailed long. It wasn’t the outcome Paul wanted, but the match had its moments.Early on, he looked up at the video board and saw that he and his buddies were on the list of Americans left in the tournament. He let that sink in, those names from the dormitory hall, names that were there in the late rounds of the junior national tournaments in his teenage years.“We grew up all together,” Paul said shortly after the loss. “Kind of cool.”Every Grand Slam tournament crowd throws its weight behind its home-country players. At the Australian Open, the “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy Oy!” chant is a constant refrain. French crowds break out in spontaneous renditions of “La Marseillaise.” At Wimbledon, Britons will pack a field court to urge on a junior player they have never heard of with the same vigor they offer Andy Murray.The U.S. Open crowd, by reputation the rowdiest and most indecorous of them all, does its boisterous best to get its own over the line.Shelton, 20, hugged Paul at the net wanting to hear just what full-throated screams from the biggest crowd he had ever played before might sound like. Hard to blame him on that front.Shelton played to the crowd after his victory. His next opponent, Frances Tiafoe, is something of a showman, too.Karsten Moran for The New York Times“Amazing atmosphere, felt the love all day,” he said on the court moments later.And it stayed that way as Gauff played against Caroline Wozniacki, a former world No. 1. Wozniacki is on the comeback trail after having two children and has long been a crowd favorite in New York.That said, she had never played Gauff on a day that felt like a flashback to a couple generations ago, back to the eras when American men and women always held the promise of becoming the class of the sport and were among its biggest stars. This was part tennis match, part revival meeting, with more screams of “Go Coco!” than anyone could count in a building that Gauff, who is just 19, figures to be making her home for the next decade.A slight complication, a welcome one for the hometown crowd, arose as 4 p.m. approached when Tiafoe strutted into Louis Armstrong Stadium to play Rinky Hijikata of Australia just as Gauff was finding her groove. Like a parent facing a choice between children, Blackman needed a plan.“First set with Coco, then over to Frances,” he said as he rushed through a hallway underneath the stadium.Coco Gauff faced Caroline Wozniacki, a former world No. 1 popular with fans, but still enjoyed a partisan crowd.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesSlight complication for Gauff, too, in the form of a late-second and early third-set wobble that had her hitting backhand after backhand into the middle of the net. Wozniacki surged into the lead, breaking Gauff’s serve in the first game of the third set. But Gauff and her 20,000 friends weren’t about to let that last for long, not on this day. With a slew of “Come ons!” and teeth clenches she reeled off the final six games, bulldozing her way back into the quarterfinals.“Had some chants going, which was really nice,” Gauff said later. “The crowd doesn’t really compare to any of the other Slams.”She won two of the three U.S. Open tuneup tournaments and, despite dropping sets in three of her first four singles matches, is brimming with confidence.“I’ve been in this position before,” said Gauff, a French Open finalist last year. “I can go even further.”Meanwhile, over on Armstrong, Tiafoe was cruising.If Ashe is American tennis’s grand cathedral, Armstrong is its party space, a 10,000-seat concrete box with an upper level of seating that seems to hang almost directly above the court and a retractable roof that keeps sound echoing up and down and all around even when open. And no one these days, other than Carlos Alcaraz, knows how to throw a party like Tiafoe, 25, who broke into the top 10 of the rankings for the first time earlier this year.Tiafoe defeated Rinky Hijikata in straight sets at Louis Armstrong Stadium before turning the court over to Taylor Fritz.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThe drunker and more spirited the fans the better as far as he is concerned. He pumps his fists, shakes his racket, and even throws out the occasional tongue wag after those curling forehands and jumping two-handed backhands, to make it just how he likes it, with as many hollers of “Go Big Foe!” as he can wring from them. It’s how he has long believed American tennis should be, and part of the reason he is Paul’s favorite player to watch in the sport.Up next for Tiafoe is Shelton, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.“He’s going to come after me, and I’m going to come after him,” he said. “I plan on being in the semi.”Then it was Fritz’s turn, filling the early evening slot on Armstrong, and taking the court shortly after Tiafoe left it, against Dominic Stricker, 21, of Switzerland, one of the surprises of the tournament. Stricker had to win three matches in the qualifying tournament to get into the main draw and he upset Stefanos Tsitsipas, a two-time Grand Slam singles finalist, in the second round. He had already played 22 sets of tennis in New York, including two five-setters, before he hit his first ball against Fritz.Taylor Fritz ended the run Dominic Stricker made out of the qualifying tournament by beating him in straight sets on Sunday.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesMuch of the Tiafoe crowd filed down the stairs into the main plaza of Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Waiting at the bottom were thousands more ready to take their place, Honey Deuces, Aperol spritzes, beers, poke bowls and fries in hand.Three American headliners had already moved on, and roughly three hours later Fritz had joined them, with a straight-sets win over Stricker, to make his second career Grand Slam singles quarterfinal, and his first since Wimbledon in 2022.“No other place I’d rather go on a run than here,” Fritz said.Madison Keys and Jessica Pegula were set to play each other in the fourth round Monday, and Peyton Stearns, out of Ohio and the University of Texas, was set to take on Marketa Vondrousova, this year’s Wimbledon champion. This home-country party was rolling on. More

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      At the U.S. Open Tommy Paul Readies Himself for the Second Round

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      After numerous misfires with his career, Paul, an American seeded 14th at the U.S. Open, finds himself as comfortable on the court as off it, and into the second round in Queens.The last time Tommy Paul needed an attitude adjustment, he had just flamed out of a small tournament in the Netherlands in the spring of 2022 in the most petulant way, and his coach had seen enough.Brad Stine, who guided Jim Courier to four Grand Slam singles titles and the world’s top ranking and coached several other top players of the past 20 years, is 64 years old and knows when a player has crossed the line from battling through a rough patch into behaving unprofessionally.For several weeks, he had watched Paul act like a child instead of a man in his mid-20s. During an opening-round match in Geneva that May, Paul had mocked someone sitting in the player box of his opponent, Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands. Paul thought the man was cheering too loudly. Another time, in the grass-court tournament in ’s Hertogenbosch, he had disrespected Brandon Nakashima, a fellow American, yelling that he should not have been losing to a player he felt he was much better than.Stine’s kids are grown and his bills are paid. He has been to tennis’ mountaintop. He doesn’t need the work. He needed to tell Paul exactly what he believed, and if their three-year player-coach relationship ended there, so be it.The coach Brad Stine gave Paul a reality check in 2022.Sandra Ruhaut/Icon Sport, via Getty Images“You’re embarrassing me,” Stine told Paul as they talked in a quiet spot at the tournament after the loss to Nakashima. Then he rattled off his complaints about Paul’s attitude and competitiveness during the previous month.Paul absorbed Stine’s words for a few moments before he spoke, then told Stine he didn’t disagree with anything he had said.Among the top American men, Frances Tiafoe, a 25-year-old son of immigrants from Sierra Leone whose run to the U.S. Open semifinals last year was electrifying, sucks up most of the oxygen these days. Taylor Fritz, the 25-year-old Californian, has the highest ranking among the group and last year won the BNP Paribas Open, the so-called fifth Slam. Sebastian Korda, the son of a Grand Slam singles champion, has the pedigree.But Paul, 26, who has a dangerous, all-court playing style, who likes to hold a rod and reel in his hands as much as (OK, maybe more than) a tennis racket, has arguably had the best season of them all.He is the only American man to make a semifinal of a Grand Slam tournament, falling to Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open, which Djokovic went on to win for a record 10th time. Paul’s ranking shot up to No. 13 this month, from No. 35 in January. He has given Carlos Alcaraz, the world No. 1, fits during the past month, beating him for the second time in his career in Toronto, then falling in three tight sets to him a week later in the Cincinnati suburbs.Paul, right, is the only American man this year to reach the semifinal of a Grand Slam tournament. He lost to Novak Djokovic, left, who went on to win a record 10th Australian Open title.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Associated PressThe rewards, including nearly $2 million in prize money, have begun rolling in. His agents at GSE Worldwide have gotten Paul new endorsement deals with Yonex, a racket manufacturer; De Bethune, the maker of his luxury watch; Motorola; IBM; Acorns, a financial management firm; and Celsius, a beverage maker. He appeared in a fashion photo spread in Vanity Fair, his hair slicked down and his body wrapped in a shiny overcoat.“Not really my thing,” said Paul, who is more suited to a trucker hat and a hoody than haute couture.This was the way it was supposed to go for Paul, who was almost always the best in his age group among American junior players. He won the French Open junior title in 2015. But then came a frustrating climb up the tennis ladder, years when Paul’s desire and commitment to his craft failed to match the talent that he had showcased from the time he was a small boy, and he learned the hard way that talent only gets a player so far.“He was the big fish in the little pond, and then he got out there and realized, these other players they’re better, and they’re working harder, too,” said his mother and first coach, Jill MacMillan, who was courtside for Paul’s four-set, first-round win over Stefano Travaglia of Italy on Monday. She and her husband live on a small farm in South Jersey, with two horses, eight sheep and various other animals.In talking about his journey later that night, Paul was philosophical.“I don’t think I ever really stopped believing,” he said. “I kind of knew that I could make it. I just didn’t really know how to do it.”Or if he really wanted to.Growing up in Greenville, N.C., where his mother and her ex-husband owned and operated a health club with some tennis courts, Paul received his first tennis racket from an older woman whom Paul and his siblings called Grandma Betty — she wasn’t their grandmother — when, he thinks, he was about 5 years old. He promptly went outside and started banging it against a tree. She followed him out and told him that wasn’t how he was supposed to use it.Paul and his older sister started spending every afternoon playing tennis at the health club. Beating his sister, who would go on to play collegiate tennis, was his earliest goal. MacMillan said that when Paul started playing — and winning — tournaments at age 6, he barely knew the rules or how to keep score. “He just loved to hit the ball.”That love never faded, even as Paul played plenty of baseball and basketball before focusing exclusively on tennis when he was about 13. Then tennis got serious and a little weird.He has vivid memories of seeing parents hitting their children for losing tournaments. His parents could not afford intensive private coaching, so Paul began to spend much of his time practicing at the United States Tennis Association’s training grounds in Florida. There were a lot of rules and a lot of coaches telling Paul what to do, such as to limit his time with friends and family. Sometimes he listened and followed the rules and practiced hard. Sometimes he didn’t. He still won plenty, so there weren’t many repercussions.He planned on attending the University of Georgia. But then he started winning lower tier pro tournaments and captured the junior title at the French Open. So instead of going to college he turned professional.Paul lost the support of the United States Tennis Association in part because of his behavior during the 2017 U.S. Open.Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBig mistake. No agents wanted to represent him because of his reputation as a player with questionable commitment, Paul said. For the next two years, he was miserable. That misery boiled over at the 2017 U.S. Open, when the aftereffects of a night of indulgence after a first-round loss in singles led to a 6-0, 6-0 loss in a doubles match. A falling out with the U.S.T.A, ultimately resulting in his loss of support, ensued over the next several months.“That was a different life,” Paul said last week while sitting on a couch in a home in Southampton on Long Island, where he was a guest of the chairman of GSE, his agency.Paul said losing the support from the U.S.T.A. was the best thing that could have happened to him. Finally, he had to take responsibility for his future in tennis, hiring his own trainer and coach. He stopped going through the motions in the gym and on the practice court.“I wasn’t going to waste my investment,” he said.The biggest one came in 2019, when following a loss in the U.S. Open qualifying tournament, he asked Stine, whose main player was battling injuries, to evaluate his game.As he watched Paul play, Stine didn’t understand how such a gifted athlete could so often be off balance on the court. He gave him a list of 11 things to fix, everything from improving his footwork to developing a slice. He shared his “conversion theory,” that all it takes to completely shift the momentum of any game regardless of the score is winning three points in a row.“Do the math,” Stine said. He’s not wrong.When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Paul and his compatriots spent much of their time in Southern California, playing at the Los Angeles-area mansions of tennis enthusiasts. He was still getting used to feeling like he belonged.Paul has a 2-2 record against Carlos Alcaraz, who is currently the No. 1 men’s singles player in the world.Vaughn Ridley/Getty ImagesEight days before the U.S. Open, Paul was fishing for tuna off Long Island. His face lights up as he talks about the hourlong fight to land a 350-pounder too big to keep. He has yet to buy his own boat, but has been pricing them out. The next day he was on the court of another seaside mansion practicing for two hours with Diego Schwartzman of Argentina.“I want him to continue to have fun,” Stine said later at the mansion they were calling home for the pretournament week.Was Paul having fun? His eyes went to the sprawling lawn and the pool and backyard tennis court.“Look where we are,” he said. More

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      At Wimbledon, Is It Time for Hawk-Eye Live to Replace the Line Judges?

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      Line judges made incorrect calls in the first week that changed the trajectory of matches for Andy Murray, Bianca Andreescu and Venus Williams, among others. Is it time to give computers the job?Andy Murray was a victim.Bianca Andreescu was too.Jiri Lehecka had to play a fifth set and essentially win his third-round match twice.Hawk-Eye Live, an electronic line calling system, could have saved the players their set, even their match, but Wimbledon doesn’t use it to its full extent, preferring a more traditional approach. The rest of the year on the professional tours, many tournaments rely exclusively on the technology, allowing players to know with near certainty whether their ball lands in or out because the computer always makes the call.But when players come to the All England Club for what is widely regarded as the most important tournament of the year, their fates are largely determined by line judges relying on their eyesight. Even more frustrating, because Wimbledon and its television partners have access to the technology, which players can use to challenge a limited number of calls each match, everyone watching the broadcast sees in real time if a ball is in or out. The people for whom the information is most important — the players and the chair umpire, who oversees the match — must rely on the line judge.When the human eye is judging serves traveling around 120 m.p.h. and forehand rallies faster than 80 m.p.h., errors are bound to happen.“When mistakes are getting made in important moments, then obviously as a player you don’t want that,” said Murray, who could have won his second-round match against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the fourth set, if computers had been making the line calls. Murray’s backhand return was called out, even though replays showed the ball was in. He ended up losing in five sets.No tennis tournament clings to its traditions the way Wimbledon does. Grass court tennis. Matches on Centre Court beginning later than everywhere else, and after those in the Royal Box have had their lunch. No lights for outdoor tennis. A queue with an hourslong wait for last-minute tickets.Those traditions do not have an effect on the outcome of matches from one point to the next. But keeping line judges on the court, after technology has proved to be more reliable, has been affecting — perhaps even turning — key matches seemingly every other day.To understand why that is happening, it’s important to understand how tennis has ended up with different rules for judging across its tournaments.Before the early 2000s, tennis — like baseball, basketball, hockey and other sports — relied on human officials to make calls, many of which were wrong, according to John McEnroe (and pretty much every other tennis player). McEnroe’s most infamous meltdown happened at Wimbledon in 1981, prompted by an incorrect line call.“I would have loved to have had Hawk-Eye,” said Mats Wilander, the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion and a star in the 1980s.But then tennis began experimenting with the Hawk-Eye Live judging system. Cameras capture the bounce of every ball from multiple angles and computers analyze the images to depict the ball’s trajectory and impact points with only a microscopic margin for error. Line judges remained as a backup, but players received three opportunities each set to challenge a line call, and an extra challenge when a set went to a tiebreaker.That forced players to try to figure out when to risk using a challenge they might need on a more crucial point later in the set.“It’s too much,” Wilander said. “I can’t imagine making that calculation, standing there, thinking about whether a shot felt good, how many challenges I have left, how late is it in the set.”Even Roger Federer, who was good at nearly every aspect of tennis, was famously terrible at making successful challenges.Hawk-Eye Live cameras along the outer courts at the U.S. Open in 2020.Jason Szenes/EPA, via ShutterstockBefore long, tennis officials began considering a fully electronic line calling system. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, tournaments were looking for ways to limit the number of people on the tennis court.Craig Tiley, the chief executive of Tennis Australia, said adopting electronic calling in 2021 was also a part of the Australian Open’s “culture of innovation.” Players liked it. So did fans, Tiley said, because matches moved more quickly.Last year, the U.S. Open switched to fully electronic line calling. There is an ongoing debate about whether the raised lines on clay courts would prevent the technology from providing the same precision as on grass and hardcourts. At the French Open and other clay court tournaments, the ball leaves a mark that umpires often inspect.In 2022, the men’s ATP Tour featured 21 tournaments with fully electronic line calling, including stops in Indian Wells, Calif.; Miami Gardens, Fla.; Canada; and Washington, D.C. All of those sites have women’s WTA tournaments as well. Every ATP tournament will use it beginning in 2025.“The question is not whether it’s 100 percent right but whether it is better than a human, and it is definitely better than a human,” said Mark Ein, who owns the Citi Open in Washington, D.C.A spokesman for the All England Club said Sunday that Wimbledon has no plans to remove its line judges.“After the tournament we look at everything we do, but at this moment, we have no plans to change the system,” Dominic Foster said.Line judges at Wimbledon are responsible for ruling the ball in or out.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesOn Saturday, Andreescu became a casualty of human error. The 2019 U.S. Open champion from Canada, Andreescu has been going deeper into Grand Slam tournaments after years of injuries.With the finish of her match against Ons Jabeur of Tunisia in sight, Andreescu resisted asking for electronic intervention on a crucial shot the line judge had called out. From across the net Jabeur, who had been close to the ball as it landed, advised Andreescu not to waste one of her three challenges for the set, saying the ball was indeed out. The match continued, though not before television viewers saw the computerized replay that showed the ball landing on the line.“I trust Ons,” Andreescu said after Jabeur came back to beat her in three sets, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.Andreescu explained that she was thinking of her previous match, a three-set marathon decided by a final-set tiebreaker, during which she said she “wasted” several challenges.Against Jabeur, she thought, “I’m going to save it, just in case.”Bad idea. Jabeur won that game, and the set, and then the match.Over on Court No. 12, the challenge system was causing another kind of confusion. Lehecka had match point against Tommy Paul when he raised his hand to challenge a call after returning a shot from Paul that had landed on the line. His request for a challenge came just as Paul hit the next shot into the net.The point was replayed. Paul won it, and then the set moments later, forcing a deciding set. Lehecka won, but had to run around for another half-hour. Venus Williams lost match point in her first-round match on another complicated sequence involving a challenge.Leylah Fernandez, a two-time Grand Slam finalist from Canada, said she likes the tradition of line judges at Wimbledon as the world cedes more to technology.Then again, she added, if “it did cost me a match, it would have been probably a different answer.”Andy Murray learned after his loss to Stefanos Tsitsipas that his shot, called out by a line judge, was in and could have changed the outcome of the match.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat is where Murray, the two-time Wimbledon champion, found himself after his loss Friday afternoon. By the time he arrived at his news conference, he had learned that his slow and sharply angled backhand return of serve that landed just a few yards from the umpire had nicked the line.The point would have given him two chances to break Tsitsipas’s serve and serve out the match. When he was told the shot was in, his eyes opened with a startle, then fell toward the floor.Murray now knew what everyone else had seen.The ball had landed under the nose of the umpire, who confirmed the call, Murray said. He could not imagine how anyone could have missed it. He actually likes having the line judges, he added. Perhaps it was his fault for not using a challenge.“Ultimately,” he said, “the umpire made a poor call that’s right in front of her.” More

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      Djokovic Is Back in the Australian Open Final

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      Djokovic will play for his 22nd Grand Slam title on Sunday against Stefanos Tsitsipas. Will his father, Srdjan, be in his usual seat in the stands to cheer him on?MELBOURNE, Australia — For Novak Djokovic, everything was going according to plan. Even better than that, by many measures.He had charmed a country that had kicked him out a year ago over his refusal to be vaccinated. The soreness in his hamstring at the beginning of the tournament had all but disappeared, allowing him to look nearly invincible in the crucial second week of the tournament. He appeared on a glide pattern to yet another Australian Open men’s singles title and the 22nd Grand Slam title of his career.And then his father, Srdjan Djokovic troubled the waters.Djokovic, Serbia’s favorite son and most famous citizen, will play for his 10th Australian Open championship on Sunday against Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, but the glide pattern is officially over. He defeated Tommy Paul in straight sets Friday, 7-5, 6-1, 6-2, in front of a hostile crowd that notably did not include his father, who has been at all his other matches during this tournament.Srdjan Djokovic on Thursday appeared in a video with fans outside Rod Laver Arena, some of whom were holding Russian flags, and next to a man wearing a shirt with the “Z” symbol that is viewed as support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the tournament’s ban on Russian and Belarusian flags.Serbia has close political and cultural ties to Russia, and support for the Russian invasion is significant there, unlike in most of the rest of Europe. The incident made headlines worldwide, sparking the ire of Ukraine’s government and sending both the tournament and Djokovic’s team scrambling to control the damage.Early Friday, Srdjan Djokovic released a statement saying he had been celebrating with his son’s fans on Wednesday night and did not mean to cause an international incident. “My family has lived through the horror of war, and we wish only for peace,” the statement said. “So there is no disruption to tonight’s semifinal for my son or for the other player, I have chosen to watch from home.”The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Coaching That Feels Like ‘Cheating’: In-match coaching has always happened on the sly, but this year is the first time the Australian Open has allowed players to be coached from the stands.Rod Laver Likes What He Sees: At 84 years old, the man with his name on the stadium sits courtside at the Australian Open.India’s Superstar: Sania Mirza, who leaves tennis as a sleeping giant, has been a trailblazer nonetheless. “I would like to have a quieter life,” she said.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Hours later, Tennis Australia, which had been criticized for not acting more swiftly to snuff out demonstrations that might incite violence, released its own statement, saying that it had worked with police to remove the demonstrators and spoken with players and their teams about the importance of not engaging in any activity that causes distress or disruption. The organization noted Srdjan Djokovic’s decision not to attend the match.“Tennis Australia stands with the call for peace and an end to war and violent conflict in Ukraine,” the statement said.After the match, Djokovic said his father’s actions had been misinterpreted, that he had no intention of offering support to Russia and the war.“We are against the war, we never will support any violence or any war,” he said. “We know how devastating that is for the family, for people in any country that is going through the war.”He said he and his father decided together that it would be best for him not to attend the semifinal but he hoped he would be there watching him in the final on Sunday.“It wasn’t pleasant not to have him in the box,” he said.Only Djokovic knows how the incident affected his play, but he was erratic early against Paul, the first-time Grand Slam semifinalist from the United States. Djokovic jumped out to an early 5-1 lead, but after he complained to the chair umpire about a fan who was harassing him he fell into a temporary funk. He dropped the next four games as the crowd rallied behind the American underdog and taunted the defending champion. Boos echoed through the stadium after Djokovic steadied himself to win the first set, 7-5.Djokovic responded by putting his hand to his ear and waving his hands as if to say, “bring it on,” which spurred the clumps of Serbian fans who attend Djokovic’s matches no matter where in the world he is playing to drown out the howls.Tsitsipas lost to Djokovic in the 2021 French Open finals after surrendering a two-set lead.Fazry Ismail/EPA, via ShutterstockThe atmosphere is likely to be even more spirited on Sunday against Tsitsipas, who is a local favorite because of Australia’s significant Greek population, among the largest in the world outside of Greece and the United States. It will be a rematch of the French Open final in 2021. There, Djokovic came back from two sets down to win his second French Open singles title.Tsitsipas has struggled to recover from that loss but has been playing arguably his best tennis since then at this tournament. Whoever wins will be the world’s top-ranked player.On Friday, he beat Karen Khachanov of Russia in four sets, 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-3. At 4-4 in the second set, Tsitsipas turned a tight match, scrambling for a series of overheads and winning the 22-shot rally with a rolling forehand winner to break Khachanov’s serve, then clinched the set in the next game. Despite wobbling in the third set with the finish line in sight, Tsitsipas came out strong in the fourth set and cruised into his second Grand Slam final, a test he said he has never been more ready for, especially with the Greek-Australian Mark Philippoussis helping his father coach.“I just see no downside or negativity in what I’m trying to do out there,” he said after beating Khachanov. “Even if it doesn’t work, I’m very optimistic and positive about any outcome, any opponent that I have to face. This is something that has been sort of lacking in my game.”Djokovic has not struggled with internal negativity in years, with good reason. He has won four of the last six Grand Slams he has played and is often most dangerous when facing adversity. The negativity he has had to deal with is external, whether it’s criticism for his refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19, or his requests that fans who try to disrupt him be removed from his matches, which has happened several times during this tournament.“It’s not pleasant for me to go through this with all the things that I had to deal with last year and this year in Australia,” he said. “It’s not something that I want or need.”There may be plenty of criticism at Sunday’s final. Chances are, Djokovic will be ready for it. More

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      It’s Tommy Paul vs. Novak Djokovic in an Australian Open Semifinal

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      Paul, the first American man to reach an Australian Open singles semifinal since Andy Roddick in 2009, must now face Novak Djokovic.MELBOURNE, Australia — The tennis breakthroughs keep coming for Tommy Paul and his American friends.Taylor Fritz became the first of their peer group to win a Masters 1000 title last year at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.A few months later, Frances Tiafoe became the first of their group to reach a Grand Slam semifinal in singles, pushing eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz to five sets.Now Paul, a smooth-moving talent who grew up near a small tennis academy run by his family in Greenville, N.C., has become the first American man to reach an Australian Open singles semifinal since Andy Roddick in 2009.For Paul, who defeated American newcomer Ben Shelton, 7-6 (6), 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, all this is no coincidence. “I think it applies a lot,” Paul said. “You see Fritz win a Masters 1000, and I think all of us we’re all happy for him, but we’re all like, ‘OK, he did it. We can do that.’“And then ‘Foe makes semifinals of the U.S. Open and had chances in the semis, and who knows what would have happened if he had won that match? So, you see that happen, and you’re, like, ‘All right, that’s awesome. I’m happy for him, but I can do that.’”The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.No Spotlight, No Problem: In tennis, there is a long history of success and exposure crushing champions or sucking the joy out of them. In this Australian Open, players under the radar have gone far.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Endless Games: As matches stretch into the early-morning hours, players have grown concerned for their health and performance.Paul, 25, has taken the hint, with ample encouragement from his veteran coach Brad Stine, who began working with him in September 2019 when Paul was outside the top 100 and had recently lost funding and coaching support from the United States Tennis Association and was denied a wild card at the 2019 U.S. Open.“That was based on some disciplinary things,” Stine said.But Stine was impressed by Paul’s openness to coaching and change — and his ability to handle world-class pace from the baseline — and though there have been some setbacks and lots of text messages, Stine feels Paul’s game is maturing and his commitment growing.“We went from him identifying himself as a counterpuncher,” said Stine, “to being a guy that’s looking for forehands and trying to dictate and dominate the court with the forehand, which was a big change because Tommy’s backhand had always been the more solid side of his game.”“I think everyone should be really excited for that kid,” Paul, left, said of Ben Shelton.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesStine already has helped a young American succeed down under.He was part of Jim Courier’s coaching team in 1992 and 1993 when Courier won back-to-back Australian Open singles titles and jumped in the Yarra River with Stine to celebrate.“He’s done so much for my game,” Paul said of Stine. “In the past four years, he’s really taken me up many, many levels. I’m really appreciative, and hopefully we can keep going. I’m going to make him jump in the Yarra if we win this thing. I’m not going, but I’m going to make him do it.”That swim, perhaps not the wisest idea in view of the Yarra’s pollution levels, remains a long shot.Paul’s opponent in his first Grand Slam semifinal on Friday will be none other than Novak Djokovic, who has won a men’s record nine singles titles at the Australian Open and who extended his winning streak at Melbourne Park to 26 matches on Wednesday night, demolishing a fine player, the No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4.“I could not be happier with my tennis,” Djokovic said, his left hamstring still tightly wrapped but his movement and ball striking beyond reproach.Paul has practiced with Djokovic but never faced him on tour. Even though Djokovic and Rublev were still on court during Paul’s post-victory news conference, Paul said he wanted the ultimate Melbourne challenge.“I probably have a better chance of winning if it’s Rublev but to play Novak here in Australia would be awesome,” Paul said.He has more support than when he started. His mother Jill MacMillan, a former college player at East Carolina University who was his first coach, arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday morning after flying from Newark to Los Angeles to Melbourne in economy class in her scrubs. She is an audiologist and had only a carry-on bag after scrambling to make the trip on short notice after Paul beat Roberto Bautista Agut in the fourth round.“I texted Tommy once I was on my way and told him, ‘Your mom did something really crazy today. I just jumped on a flight from work,’” MacMillan said. “And he was like, ‘Unreal!’”Twenty-four hours and not much sleep later, she was sitting in the players box.“Oh my gosh, I was so high on adrenaline, I didn’t feel it,” she said. “But Ben made it pretty hard for him, though.”Chris McCormack, left, Paul’s agent, watched the match with Jill MacMillan, Paul’s mother, and Paige Lorenze, the player’s girlfriend.Aaron Favila/Associated PressShelton, a 20-year-old lefthander from Gainesville, Fla. playing in his first Australian Open, continued to impress in only his fourth tour-level event, pounding aces or aggressive second serves on break points and fighting back to force a fourth set even though he struggled for much of the match to return Paul’s serve.“I think everyone should be really excited for that kid,” Paul said, after shaking Shelton’s hand twice and embracing him at the net.There is genuine camaraderie among this rising generation of Americans, and Paul is now guaranteed to join Fritz and Tiafoe in the top 20 on Monday.He already has defeated top-drawer opponents: beating Rafael Nadal and the world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz in 2022. He is an all-surface threat who grew up playing on green clay at his family’s club in North Carolina and won the French Open boys’ title on red clay in 2015, beating Fritz in the final. Last year, he reached the fourth round at Wimbledon on grass.Now, he has made his deepest Grand Slam run on a hardcourt. The Yarra River, which still flows past Melbourne Park, awaits if Paul can beat the odds (and Djokovic) and become the first of his peer group to win a major title.“Actually, I think he will be the one taking a swim if he wins,” Stine said with a grin. More

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      An All-American Australian Open Quarterfinal: Ben Shelton vs. Tommy Paul

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      Ben Shelton and Tommy Paul are playing for a spot in the Australian Open semifinals. The United States has waited a long time for something like this.MELBOURNE, Australia — Maybe one day, and sooner rather than later, American men swimming in the deep end of the pool at Grand Slam tennis events will stop being noteworthy.That is how it was during the first 40 years of the modern era of tennis, which began in 1968. During that era, some combination of players from the United States — Ashe, Smith, Connors, McEnroe, Agassi, Chang, Sampras, Courier, Roddick — almost always lurked, or even played each other, in the final days of the biggest tournaments.Those days now feel so long ago, an era that was destined to end after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the spread of wealth to Eastern Europe and the growing popularity and accessibility of a previously inaccessible sport beyond its traditional power centers in the United States, Australia, Britain, France and a few other countries in Western Europe.When Ben Shelton and Tommy Paul square off in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open on Wednesday afternoon (Tuesday night in the United States), it will be the first time two Americans have met this late in a Grand Slam event since Andy Roddick played Mardy Fish in Melbourne in 2007.Since one of them has to win, the United States is guaranteed its first Australian Open semifinalist since Roddick in 2009. A third American quarterfinalist, Sebastian Korda, retired with a wrist injury, down, 7-6 (5), 6-3, 3-0, to Karen Khachanov of Russia. Korda could have made it two American Grand Slam semifinalists for the first time since 2005.And yet, since early last summer, American men’s tennis has been having a moment that had been promised ever since the United States Tennis Association realized it had a serious problem on its hands some 15 years ago. This is what the U.S.T.A. had in mind when it began a development academy in 2008.The program has changed since then, switching to an emphasis on periodic camps for promising young players rather than having them leave home as young teenagers. But the goal has always been to develop a critical mass of players to compete regularly at the most important tournaments. American women, led by Serena and Venus Williams, could always do it. Not so for the men. Then last summer, results began to show.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.No Spotlight, No Problem: In tennis, there is a long history of success and exposure crushing champions or sucking the joy out of them. In this Australian Open, players under the radar have gone far.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Endless Games: As matches stretch into the early-morning hours, players have grown concerned for their health and performance.A New Style Star: Frances Tiafoe may have lost his shot at winning the Australian Open, but his swirly “himbo” look won him fashion points.“This is what we’ve been working for,” Martin Blackman, the general manager for player development at the U.S.T.A., said as he sat on a bench across from Centre Court at Wimbledon in July.There, four American men made the final 16. Taylor Fritz barely lost to Rafael Nadal in a fifth-set tiebreaker in the quarterfinals. Two months later, at the U.S. Open, Frances Tiafoe became a sensation on his way to a semifinal loss to Carlos Alcaraz, the eventual champion and world No. 1.Those tournaments were a little different though.Wimbledon had barred Russians and Belarusians from participating because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That took three dangerous opponents — Daniill Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Khachanov — out of the draw.At the 2022 U.S. Open, Tiafoe was the only American to make it to the fourth round. But his victory over Nadal and near-upset of Alcaraz, combined with Fritz’s title at Indian Wells, Calif., in March, produced a new level of confidence among a collection of players 25 and younger, several of whom have been traveling, training and playing together since their early teenage years.“We expect to do well,” Paul, 25, said last week in an interview on a sun-splashed terrace in Melbourne as he watched another promising young American, Jenson Brooksby, beat Norway’s Casper Ruud, the second seed and a finalist at the French and U.S. Opens last year. “We probably expect to have at least a few of us in the second week. That’s our goal, and I know some of us want to go deeper.”He also served what turned out to be notice that afternoon.“We got Ben Shelton coming,” he said of the 20-year-old N.C.A.A. champion.Paul has taken the young player under his wing since Shelton turned professional in the middle of last year.“Kind of helped me navigate some of the early stages of a professional career,” Shelton said of Paul on Monday night, after his fourth-round win over another young American, J.J. Wolf, 24. “He’s been a good friend.”A good friend but never an opponent. They have hit just once, warming up together in Ohio last summer. Paul’s plan ahead of the quarterfinal was to watch videos of Shelton’s matches. What he will see is a dangerous lefty, seemingly fearless beyond his years, with a thumping serve and a fast-improving power game from the baseline.Shelton is still taking classes at the University of Florida and is determined to get his degree. He said he was lucky the semester had just started, so balancing school work with preparing for his matches was not a problem.Shelton also had the good fortune of a kind draw. Ranked 89th in the world at the beginning of the tournament, he has yet to face a seeded player. Most of his opponents have been lower ranked. One received a wild card. Another survived the qualifying tournament.Paul, ranked 35th, peaked at 29th in the world last year. He won the French Open boys’ singles title in 2015. Since then, though, he and his close friends and countrymen — Tiafoe, Fritz and Reilly Opelka — have watched players they beat as juniors achieve more than they have. But he believed he would play in the late stages of a Grand Slam event, even if, as he put it, some people might have considered him somewhat delusional in recent years.Born in New Jersey and raised in North Carolina, where he grew up playing on clay courts in Greenville, N.C., Paul is an all-court player with quick feet. He also has a frightening serve that topped out at 137 miles per hour during his fourth-round win over Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain. The ball off his racket sounds like wood popping in a campfire.Between points, and even in his service motion, there is a languid quality to his movements. Then the point begins and, if he is on, Paul is all grit, touch and force. But he is also comfortable banging and scrambling as long as the point requires.Lately, he has been playing with a freakish display of calm that betrays none of his internal tension. It’s the aspect of his game that he has worked on the hardest over the past 18 months.“That’s the hard part of playing tennis, right?” he said. “You got to keep calm.”That is especially true during five-set matches in Grand Slam events that include plenty of peaks and valleys, both physical and mental. Shelton, whose father, Bryan, played on the ATP Tour in the 1990s and now coaches both his son and the men’s team at Florida, has endured some early lessons in that. Two of his four matches have gone the distance. One ended in a fifth-set tiebreaker.For Paul and Shelton, doing Tiafoe one better and becoming the first American man to make a Grand Slam final since Roddick lost to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009, still may be too high a mountain to climb. The winner gets a likely semifinal match with Novak Djokovic, the nine-time Australian Open champion with 21 Grand Slam titles who is rounding into form as the tournament wears on.Paul would relish that chance anyway. He has waited a long time for it, and so has his country. More

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      At the Australian Open, American Men Advance en Masse

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      Sebastian Korda, Ben Shelton, J.J. Wolf and Tommy Paul all made the fourth round in singles. Not since 2004 have four men from the United States gone this far in Melbourne.MELBOURNE, Australia — There were 94,854 fans at the Australian Open on Saturday, setting a single-day attendance record.But perhaps even more surprising than the size of the audience was that four American men remained in contention for the men’s singles title: Sebastian Korda, Ben Shelton, J.J. Wolf and Tommy Paul.None of them have made it this far at the Open until now, and Shelton, the youngest at age 20, had never played in Australia or anywhere outside the United States until a few weeks ago.The two highest-ranked Americans and most likely candidates to go deeper in Melbourne are missing. Taylor Fritz, the No. 8 seed, and Frances Tiafoe, the No. 16 seed, have already been eliminated. Reilly Opelka, the imposing 7-foot-tall big server who broke into the top 20 last year, is recovering from hip surgery. Mackenzie McDonald, the former U.C.L.A. star who upset Rafael Nadal in the second round, was beaten in his next match.But Korda, Shelton, Wolf and Paul all advanced to the round of 16, a sign of the renewed strength and depth of American men’s tennis.“These young guys are coming up, pushing each other,” said Dean Goldfine, one of Shelton’s coaches. “I think that’s one of the things that’s contributing to our success right now as a country. We have these waves. It’s not just one guy here, one guy there. We’ve got a bunch of them, and I think there’s a friendly rivalry there.”The last time there were four American men in the fourth round of the Australian Open in singles was in 2004 with Andre Agassi, James Blake, Robby Ginepri and Andy Roddick. All were stars or established threats, though it was Ginepri’s deepest run at that stage in a major.Tommy Paul will face Roberto Bautista Agut, a Spanish veteran who is seeded 24th.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMost of this year’s group is just getting started. Paul, 25, is the oldest: an acrobatic all-court player with excellent timing who can take the ball extremely early. He also reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year and broke into the top 30 under the tutelage of veteran coach Brad Stine. He switched racket brands in the off-season — often a risky move — but has been sharp in Melbourne and dominated fellow American Jenson Brooksby on Saturday, winning in straight sets.Paul will face Roberto Bautista Agut, a Spanish veteran who is seeded 24th and is the only seeded player left in the bottom quarter of the draw.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.A New Style Star: Frances Tiafoe may have lost his shot at winning the Australian Open, but his swirly “himbo” look won him fashion points.Caroline Garcia: The top-five player has spoken openly about her struggles with an eating disorder. She is at the Australian Open chasing her first Grand Slam singles title.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Endless Games: As matches in professional tennis stretch into the early-morning hours, players have grown concerned for their health and performance.The other players in that section are Shelton and Wolf, former collegiate standouts who will face each other on Monday. Shelton won the N.C.A.A. singles title last year for the University of Florida, where he was coached by his father Bryan Shelton, a former ATP Tour player. Wolf, 24, played for three years at Ohio State, where he was an All-American and the Big Ten player of the year in 2019.Ben Shelton and Wolf have become friendly since Shelton turned pro last August. “I had seen him play in college tennis, but he was older than me, so we never competed against each other,” Shelton said of Wolf. “We’re good friends, like to joke around a lot, have a lot of locker room banter.”Both are solidly built and powerful. Wolf has one of the most penetrating forehands in the game. Shelton, a left-hander, has one of the most intimidating serves, frequently surpassing 124 miles per hour. He has won 83 percent of his first-serve points in Melbourne and 64 percent of his second-serve points. Shelton was not broken on Saturday as he prevailed over Alexei Popyrin, the Australian who upset Fritz in the second round and again had a big home crowd ready to support him in John Cain Arena.“They kind of set the tone when I walked out on the court, and I got booed,” said Shelton, laughing. “Similar to some away matches and college atmospheres that I have been at but definitely amplified today. The sound in there kind of just vibrates.”But Shelton’s dominant play in his victory, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-4, often meant that the arena was unusually quiet. His shouts of “Come on!” reverberated through the space.“Honestly, if this is the way he plays day in, day out, the guy is top 10 in six months,” Popyrin said.Consistency can be elusive at this level, particularly when you take the risks that Shelton does. But he continues to make a big impression as he embarks on his first full season on tour.“I definitely wouldn’t have thought that I would be here in this moment six months ago or four months ago,” said Shelton, who was ranked outside the top 500 in May.This is only his second Grand Slam tournament after losing in the first round of last year’s U.S. Open, but he already has guaranteed himself a spot in the top 70 and also equaled his father’s best performance in a Grand Slam event. Bryan Shelton reached the fourth round of Wimbledon as a qualifier in 1994.Ben Shelton celebrated after defeating Alexei Popyrin.James Ross/EPA, via ShutterstockBryan Shelton is not in Melbourne because he is in the middle of the collegiate tennis season. Florida had a match on Saturday, but he got up early to watch his son’s match in Australia because of the time difference.“I think I messed up his sleep schedule a little bit,” Ben Shelton said.Both Shelton and Wolf come from athletic families. Wolf’s sister Danielle also played tennis at Ohio State, and his mother, Brooke, played for Miami of Ohio. His grandfather Charles Wolf coached the Cincinnati Royals and the Detroit Pistons in the N.B.A.But the American in the fourth round with the most successful athletic family is the 22-year-old Korda. His parents were leading professional tennis players: his father, Petr, was No. 2 on the ATP Tour and won the Australian Open; his mother, Regina, was ranked in the top 30 on the WTA Tour. Korda’s two older sisters, Nelly and Jessica, are leading women’s professional golfers: Nelly has been ranked No. 1 in the world; Jessica is currently No. 18.“I’m definitely the worst athlete in the family so far,” Sebastian Korda said on Friday after defeating the former world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev in straight sets in the third round for the biggest victory of his career.But Korda, seeded 29th at the Australian Open, looks poised to move up in his family’s rankings. At 6-foot-5, he has a fluid, deceptively powerful game full of variety and though he has come close to major upsets against the game’s biggest stars, holding match points before losing to Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, he held firm against the 7th-seeded Medvedev in Rod Laver Arena to win, 7-6 (7), 6-3, 7-6 (4).Korda’s American peers were closely watching him as they prepared for their own challenges.“I was in my hotel room, stretching and taking care of myself, but I was glued to the TV,” Wolf said. “He was playing amazing.”J.J. Wolf in action during the first round of the Australian Open.Lukas Coch/EPA, via Shutterstock More