Carlos Alcaraz's US Open reign ended at 3:33am on Wednesday, the latest any match has ever finished in the tournament's history. Ben Shelton, the American sixth seed, put him out 6-7(5) 6-1 6-3 1-6 7-6(10-7) in four and a half hours in front of an Arthur Ashe crowd that never left.
Shelton had looked like closing it early, taking nine games in a row from the second set into the third, but Alcaraz — playing his first tournament since April after a right wrist injury — forced a decider and won the fourth 6-1, vomiting on court before the fifth began. The match went to a tiebreak, and Shelton took it.
“It's always about the people in the crowd,” Shelton said afterwards, crediting a New York crowd that stayed until 3am.
The result guarantees an American man in Sunday's final for the first time in a generation. Shelton meets Frances Tiafoe on Friday, after Tiafoe came from two sets down to beat Alex Michelsen. It is the first meeting between two Black American men at the semi-final stage or later of a major in the Open era, and the winner becomes the first Black American man in a US Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972. No American man has won a major since Andy Roddick here in 2003.
The night also broke a run of streaks. Alcaraz had won 18 consecutive Grand Slam matches and 12 straight five-setters, level with Björn Borg's Open-era record, and had never lost a US Open match after taking the first set. He is now the 18th consecutive US Open champion not to defend the title — nobody has managed it since Roger Federer's five in a row ended in 2008.
Source
Original summary by Proventier.