By Gus "Walk-Off" Fields
Arthur Ashe Stadium stayed loud deep into Sunday night, and for once the noise wasn't for Carlos Alcaraz alone.
The defending champion did his part early, brushing past Tommy Paul 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 in the afternoon session to reach the quarterfinals looking, by his own account, "happy" with his form. But the story of the day belonged to the Americans. Frances Tiafoe and Alex Michelsen both punched their tickets to the quarterfinals, and Ben Shelton had a late-night chance to make it three.
It matters because no American man has won this tournament — or any Grand Slam — since Andy Roddick lifted the US Open trophy in 2003. That is 23 years of near-misses, of promising kids growing into promising veterans and still coming up short. Three men into one quarterfinal draw is the kind of number that gets old-timers at Flushing Meadows talking.
Shelton's path forward may run through Alcaraz himself in the next round, a matchup ESPN previewed as a genuine blockbuster. Shelton hasn't beaten the Spaniard yet in their prior meetings, but those defeats have left marks — the kind a young player can turn into lessons if he's paying attention. He'll need every one of them; Alcaraz, 23 himself, has looked untroubled through the first week.
For now, the drought is still technically alive. But New York has three live bullets in the chamber, and that hasn't been true in a long time. Whether it ends with a parade down the Canyon of Heroes or another near-miss, the tennis alone is worth staying up for.
— Compiled from reporting by ESPN.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."