Ben Shelton earned his best result in a Grand Slam at the US Open. He had a memorable run in the tournament, defeating multiple notable players in grueling matches. But Tallon Griekspoor believes that the American should have been eliminated by Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals. He felt that things could have been way different if it wasn’t the Spaniard’s first tournament since April.

“Alcaraz should have beaten him in the quarterfinals, but he played a nightmare tiebreak in the fifth set,” he said in a press conference ahead of the Davis Cup. “Then Alcaraz left the pitch smiling. I had the impression that this showed what his expectations were. He had not arrived at the tournament in top form. I think he and his staff were already satisfied like this.”

Shelton and Alcaraz played out quite a thriller in the last 8. The match went down to the wire and was decided through a fifth-set tiebreaker. Shelton eventually triumphed 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6, bringing an end to Alcaraz’s 11-match winning streak in the Grand Slam.

The World No. 3 put in an incredible effort, but came up short at the end of the day. Not to mention that he also wasn’t at his physical best during the match and suffered from extreme physical exhaustion. He even vomited before the start of the fifth set, showing that he was physically drained because of the match.

Despite facing multiple health issues, Alcaraz managed to take the fifth set to a tiebreaker. But his resilience faded in the final stages of the match as Shelton triumphed 10-7 in the breaker to secure a spot in the semifinals. This was Shelton’s first victory over the Spaniard in a tour-level match. He had come up on the losing side in all his previous three meetings against Alcaraz.

Shelton was then involved in another grueling match against Frances Tiafoe in the semifinals. Like the previous match, he lost the first set but came back brilliantly and won the next three in a row to eliminate his compatriot. The 23-year-old racked up a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 victory to set up a meeting with Alexander Zverev in the final.

The final would also be decided in four sets, but this time, Shelton wasn’t the one who came out victorious. Zverev continued his exceptional run of form in the Grand Slams and won 6-3, 7-6, 5-7, 6-2, crushing the home crowd’s hopes of seeing the first American male champion since Andy Roddick in 2003.

While there was barely anyone who complained about the quality of tennis in the final, Griekspoor had a very different opinion on the matter. He felt that the match wasn’t quite up to the mark, adding that the occasion became too big for Shelton, who was playing his first-ever Grand Slam final.

Tallon Griekspoor describes the US Open final as “mediocre”

“I found the game rather mediocre. Shelton played very intermittently and gave away two or three free points per game. You can see what a first Grand Slam final can do to a player. Zverev was not exceptional, but he served very well indeed. The tie-break of the second set was crucial,” he said about the US Open final.

Despite the heartbreaking defeat in the final, the US swing proved to be a major success for Shelton. His only disappointing result came at the Cincinnati Masters, where he was eliminated in the first round by Jaime Faria.

The 23-year-old began the hard-court season by reaching the quarterfinals of the Citi Open and followed that up by defending his title at the Canadian Open. Making it to the US Open final saw him end the US swing with a win-loss record of 14-3.

This impressive run of form has seen Shelton rise to No. 4 in the rankings with 4,680 points. He is currently 880 points behind Alcaraz’s tally of 5,560. Having brought a major improvement to his form in the US, Shelton will now be aiming to rack up more positive results in the upcoming Asian swing.