Shelton survives in five again at Wimbledon

pAfter a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lloyd-harris/hg86/overview'Lloyd Harris/a hit a final backhand passing shot wide Thursday afternoon on a beautiful London day, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/ben-shelton/s0s1/overview'Ben Shelton/a dropped his racquet to the Court 18 grass and held his arms outward. Not only was the American celebrating a memorable victory, but he was seemingly saying with his motion, ldquo;How about that?rdquo;/p

pFor the second consecutive match at a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a, the 21-year-old survived in five sets. The 14th-seeded Shelton battled past qualifier a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lloyd-harris/hg86/overview'Lloyd Harris/a 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 6-3, 7-6(10-7) in a gripping three-hour, 14-minute encounter./p

pThe atmosphere was closer to that of a football match than what you might expect at SW19. When Shelton attacked Harrisrsquo; backhand to force an error at 6/5 in the final-set tie-break, earning a critical mini-break, fans burst out into chants of ldquo;USA! USA! USA!rdquo; It is only fitting it is the fourth of July. /p

pAmong those watching from the terrace above were tournament director a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jamie-baker/ba53/overview'Jamie Baker/a, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lleyton-hewitt/h432/overview'Lleyton Hewitt/arsquo;s son a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/cruz-hewitt/h0k0/overview'Cruz Hewitt/a and the USTArsquo;s a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/martin-blackman/b302/overview'Martin Blackman/a./p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"

p lang="en" dir="ltr"SW19 SHELTON ????a href="https://twitter.com/BenShelton?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@BenShelton/a pushed all the way by Harris 4-6 7-6(5) 6-7(5) 6-3 7-6(7) advances to the 3rd round!a href="https://twitter.com/a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@Wimbledon/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#Wimbledon/a a href="https://t.co/acRmjpvKI8"pic.twitter.com/acRmjpvKI8/a/p

mdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1808878287629791418?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"July 4, 2024/a/blockquote

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pShelton relinquished the mini-break and was in big trouble on the next point, but Harris missed a short backhand that would have given him the advantage. /p

pThe South African, who won a final-set tie-break in his opening match against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alex-michelsen/m0qi/overview'Alex Michelsen/a, then missed a makeable forehand volley on a serve-and-volley attempt. That proved the crucial mistake. /p

pShelton showed great feel around the net under the pressure in the Match Tie-break to advance to the third round at The Championships for the first time, two days after rallying past a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/mattia-bellucci/b0gg/overview'Mattia Bellucci/a in a deciding set. He will next face Canadian a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/denis-shapovalov/su55/overview'Denis Shapovalov/a, who also won a five-setter./p

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pThe former No. 10 player in the PIF ATP Rankings clawed past German a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/daniel-altmaier/ae14/overview'Daniel Altmaier/a 7-6(3), 6-3, 1-6, 6-7(3), 6-4. Shapovalov has now reached the third round at a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a in three of the past four editions./p

pThe Shelton-Shapovalov clash will be the pairrsquo;s first Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting. Both men are dynamic left-handed players who are capable of landing jaw-dropping shots and bringing the crowd into the match./p

pShelton broke through on the Grand Slam stage last year when he made the semi-finals of the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/us-open/560/overview'US Open/a, becoming the youngest American man to accomplish the feat since a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/michael-chang/c274/overview'Michael Chang/a in 1992./p

p[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p