Alex Michelsen was just two points from his first Grand Slam semi-final. Frances Tiafoe was two sets down, one game from defeat and seemingly out of answers.
But tennis scoring is unique. More than two hours later, Michelsen was crying on his countryman’s shoulder and Tiafoe was celebrating one of the greatest escapes of his career.
The 28-year-old recovered from two sets down and an early break in the fifth to defeat Michelsen 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6(6) in an extraordinary US Open quarter-final on Arthur Ashe Stadium. The match lasted four hours and 38 minutes and carried Tiafoe into his third semi-final at Flushing Meadows in five years.
It was a contest Tiafoe could have, and probably should have, lost in three sets. Michelsen served for the match at 5-4 in the third, having moved through the tournament without dropping a set. Until that moment, the 22-year-old had handled the biggest occasion of his career with striking composure.
Tiafoe admitted that he needed some help.
“I hope he gets tight.” he said. “He gave me some gifts, a couple of double faults there. But then I slowly started to get my rhythm there, snuck out the third set and slowly started playing better and better.”
Those double faults provided the opening. Michelsen began the game with two in succession, allowing Tiafoe back into a match that had appeared to be slipping away with surprising speed. The No. 11 seed broke for 5-5, held for 6-5 and then attacked again as Michelsen served to force a tie-break.
Michelsen saved one set point with a 133mph ace, but could not survive the next. A missed forehand volley handed Tiafoe the set 7-5 and transformed the afternoon.
“I snuck out that third set and only started playing better and better,” Tiafoe said.
The match had begun with both men struggling to hold their serves. Four breaks came in the opening five games before Michelsen found some sort of stability. Tiafoe saved a set point at 4-5, but Michelsen held comfortably in the following game and broke again at 6-5 to take the opening set in 50 minutes.
Michelsen then assumed control of the second. He broke for 3-1, saved two break points in the next game and added another break for 5-1 after winning a demanding 24-shot exchange. Tiafoe retrieved one break, but Michelsen served out the set 6-3 and moved within one set of the semi-finals.
The Californian had arrived in the quarter-finals as the only man remaining in the draw who had not lost a set. He extended that sequence to 14 consecutive sets by winning the first two against Tiafoe.
His level remained high for most of the third. Michelsen broke early and, when he faced three break points at 4-3, saved all of them. The second was erased with a 134mph ace. He held for 5-3 and was one game from becoming the first American man since Jim Courier in 1991 to reach the US Open semi-finals without dropping a set.
Tiafoe held to force Michelsen to serve for the match. But all tennis players know serving for a match isn’t as simple as it may seem.
After escaping the third set, Tiafoe began to play with greater freedom. He won 17 of the final 22 points of the set and carried that momentum into the fourth, breaking early as his movement improved and his forehand began to inflict more damage.
Michelsen broke back for 3-2 after a 14-point game, but Tiafoe responded immediately. Another break restored his advantage, and he served out the set 6-3 to force a decider.
By then, the atmosphere inside Arthur Ashe Stadium had changed. The crowd had been unusually subdued during the early stages, with many seats empty following Aryna Sabalenka’s long quarter-final against Linda Nosková. Tiafoe, who had played his first four matches on Louis Armstrong Stadium, initially appeared unable to generate his usual energy.
“Everyone was asleep in the first couple hours, and I was like, ‘What’s going on?’” he said afterwards. “I was asleep with y’all. And then, as it went along, the energy was incredible, as it always is.”
Michelsen could have been forgiven for carrying the disappointment of the third and fourth sets into the fifth. Instead, he recovered impressively. He held to begin the decider, then broke Tiafoe to love and consolidated for 3-0.
Once again, Tiafoe was in trouble. Once again, he found a response.
He recovered the break and began serving with a conviction that had been absent for much of the afternoon. Tiafoe had managed only three aces across the first four sets but struck seven in the fifth alone. Three came within the final four points of a tense service game that allowed him to hold for 5-5.
Michelsen steadied himself again, recovering from 0-30 in the next game before winning a 19-shot rally at 30-30 and holding for 6-5. Tiafoe answered with another hold, sending the match into a first-to-10-point deciding tie-break.
Tiafoe created the first significant separation, moving ahead 6-4. Michelsen closed to 7-6, but a 135mph ace gave Tiafoe an 8-6 advantage. A Michelsen backhand error then produced three match points.
Tiafoe then ended the contest with a forehand passing-shot winner.
The statistics reflected a match in which Michelsen frequently produced the more imposing numbers but could not win the points that ultimately decided it. He struck 21 aces to Tiafoe’s 10 and won 73 per cent of his first-serve points, compared with Tiafoe’s 67 per cent.
Michelsen also landed 57 per cent of his first serves, while Tiafoe made only 51 per cent. Yet his nine double faults, including the two at the beginning of the game in which he served for the match, proved costly. Tiafoe committed four.
Each man converted eight break points. Tiafoe took eight of 17 opportunities, while Michelsen converted eight of 23. Both held in 19 of their 27 service games, meaning the match contained 16 breaks of serve.
That volatility made Tiafoe’s fifth-set serving surge especially important. After both players had struggled to hold consistently for four sets, Tiafoe found his most effective serving when there was no remaining margin for error.
He also had experience on his side. Tiafoe had previously recovered from two sets down twice in his career. Michelsen entered the contest without a victory in a five-set match and has now lost all six he has played.
Michelsen had been attempting to reach his first major semi-final in his first Grand Slam quarter-final. Ranked No. 46 and unseeded in New York, he had defeated No. 16 seed Brandon Nakashima and No. 27 seed Tomás Martín Etcheverry during the deepest major run of his career.
He also became the first man born in 2004 to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final.
When the final point ended, Tiafoe briefly acknowledged the crowd before making his way towards Michelsen. The younger American was quickly overcome by emotion, sobbing as Tiafoe held him in a long embrace near the umpire’s chair.
“I wasn’t saying much,” Michelsen explained in his press conference. “I was trying to keep it together, and I didn’t do a good job of that. He was saying a lot of nice personal things. He’s a great guy for consoling me in that moment.”
“He’s also an unbelievable guy and a very good friend of mine,” Michelsen added.
“He’s a hell of a player, man,” Tiafoe said. “I mean, he easily could have won today, so shout out to Alex Michelsen.”
For Tiafoe, the victory extended his close relationship with the US Open. He reached his first Grand Slam semi-final in New York in 2022 and returned to the same stage in 2024. His latest run makes him only the second American man this century, after Andre Agassi, to reach three US Open semi-finals.
He is also projected to return to the Top 10 for the first time in three years, rising to No. 8 in the live rankings after the victory.
The comeback was the first from two sets down in the men’s singles at the US Open since Roger Federer recovered to defeat Gaël Monfils in the 2014 quarter-finals.
Tiafoe will face either defending champion Carlos Alcaraz or Ben Shelton for a place in his first Grand Slam final. If Shelton advances, the United States will be guaranteed its first home finalist in the men’s singles since Andy Roddick in 2006. An Alcaraz victory would give Tiafoe a rematch of their memorable 2022 US Open semi-final.
Tiafoe said he planned to watch at least some of the night-session quarter-final, but only after allowing himself to absorb what he had survived.
“I’m going to enjoy this one, though,” he told the Ashe crowd. “Let’s go!”
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