Ben Shelton, Frances Tiafoe and Tommy Paul try to add to the best French Open for US men in decades
PARIS (AP) — It's been 30 years since three American men reached Week 2 at the French Open. Back then, it was Andre Agassi, Michael Chang and Jim Courier — each of whom won the tournament at some point.
This go-round, the trio is Tommy Paul, Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe, all scheduled to be on court Sunday in fourth-round action at Roland-Garros.
Advertisement
'Yeah, about time,' joked Jessica Pegula, who advanced Saturday to give the U.S. at least three women in the round of 16. 'It's exciting to see. Obviously you want to see your fellow countrymen do well on the other side, and I'm always actually keeping up with them quite a lot. So I hope they keep it going.'
Who do the American men left in the French Open play on Sunday?
Won't be easy, of course, perhaps especially for the 13th-seeded Shelton, the big-serving lefty who goes up against defending champion Carlos Alcaraz of Spain for a berth in the quarterfinals. No. 12 Paul takes on No. 25 Alexei Popyrin of Australia; No. 15 Tiafoe meets unseeded Daniel Altmaier of Germany.
Not since Courier and Pete Sampras in 1996 have multiple Americans made it to the quarterfinals in Paris.
Advertisement
Historically, the slower red clay used at the French Open has not been particularly kind to men from the United States. Some of that is simply that they tend to grow up playing mostly on hard courts, which reward a big-strike style of hard-hitting tennis, and so they are not as accustomed to the patience and footwork required on the red dirt.
'I really do think everyone can play on this surface," Paul said. 'I remind myself it's just tennis.'
But for years, Paul said, he was not excited to participate in the French Open. And that's coming from someone who won the event's junior title as a teen in 2015.
'Now I come over here and I look at it as an opportunity,' said Paul, 28, who grew up in North Carolina. 'I think all the Americans do.'
Advertisement
Andre Agassi in 1999 was the last US man to win the Roland-Garros title
Agassi, in 1999, was the last American man to win the trophy at the French Open — and the nation hasn't had a male finalist since then. Before that, it was Courier in 1991 and 1992. Before that, it was Chang in 1989. And before that, you have to go all the way back to Tony Trabert in 1954 and 1955.
American women have had much more success: 15 singles titles in the Open era, including seven for Chris Evert and three for Serena Williams, plus 13 runner-up showings, most recently by Coco Gauff in 2022.
'It's super critical not to worry about what was and just worry about what is,' said Tiafoe, a 27-year-old from Maryland who twice made the semifinals at the hard-court U.S. Open but began his Roland-Garros career by going 0-6. 'Currently we're at the French Open, and just try to be elite. This is where it counts. So guys just believe it.'
Advertisement
Unlike in New York, where Tiafoe is the center of attention and a fan favorite, a scene he loves — 'There is so much anticipation; there's so much energy' — Paris, he said, presents 'a different vibe' and 'more of a low-key kind of thing.'
So far, so good.
Ben Shelton tries to stop the defending champion in Paris
There wasn't likely to be anything low key about Shelton vs. Alcaraz in the main stadium, Court Philippe-Chatrier. They are among the flashiest, most entertaining athletes in men's tennis at the moment.
Alcaraz is seeded No. 2. At 22, the same age as Shelton — who won an NCAA title for the University of Florida — Alcaraz already owns four Grand Slam titles, with at least one each on the clay at the French Open, the grass at Wimbledon and the hard courts at the U.S. Open.
Advertisement
'That's a pretty cool opportunity, pretty cool experience, that not a lot of people get or see in their lifetime," said Shelton, a semifinalist at the U.S. Open in 2023 and the Australian Open in January but 2-2 at Roland-Garros before this year. 'For me, I'm definitely going to enjoy it and go out there and see what I can do, because I'm starting to gain some speed, gain a little bit of traction, on this surface and starting to see some of my best tennis. I like to think of myself as dangerous whenever I get to that place.'
___
Howard Fendrich has been the AP's tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Howard Fendrich, The Associated Press
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
29 minutes ago
- New York Times
Inside Paris chaos: Violence and disorder prove familiar footnote to historic game
Desire Doue's deflected shot had barely had time to nestle in the net before the first firework broke across the sky in the eastern Paris suburb of Montreuil. Here, as across the French capital, fans piled into bars and cafes, squeezed themselves onto beer-garden benches and crowded around televisions in their sitting rooms to witness Paris Saint-Germain's historic 5-0 annihilation of Inter in the Champions League final. Advertisement It was a success that had been a long time coming: five years since PSG's only previous appearance in the final, 14 years since the club's agenda-changing takeover by Qatar Sports Investments, 32 years since hated rivals Marseille had claimed France's first — and hitherto only — men's Champions League success. PSG may be a young football club, having only come into being in 1970, but their supporters, young and old, had been waiting for this moment their entire lives. Expectation had turned into tension in the days preceding the game and the nearer it came, the greater the tension grew. But then, in the blink of an eye, the tension was gone. Doue's goal made it 2-0 after only 20 minutes and when he added PSG's third goal with half an hour remaining, shortly to be followed by a fourth, and then a fifth, the cork came off the bottle, turning the entire city into a riot of booming fireworks, bright flares, honking car horns and deliriously celebrating fans. Very quickly, however, and well before the game in Munich had finished, a darker note crept into the celebrations as disturbing videos began to pop up on social media. Cars burning in the streets. Bus stops smashed. Groups of youths flooding across the Peripherique ring road, bringing traffic to a standstill. A young man violently robbed of his scooter. A cyclist left slumped in the road after being knocked from his Velib rental bicycle by a car. Shockingly graphic images showing the aftermath of a collision between a car and a group of people, this time in the south-eastern city of Grenoble, which left two people seriously injured. On the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, police deployed water cannon and tear gas to disperse supporters who attempted to break through crash barriers in order to reach the Arc de Triomphe at the top of the iconic cobbled street. Running battles between troublemakers and members of the CRS, France's notorious riot police, continued throughout the night. Advertisement 'We arrived on the Champs and we saw the first lines of CRS,' says Mathieu Faurie, who was out watching the celebrations and witnessed some of the disorder first-hand. 'We got to the first shops and some people started smashing the windows in Foot Locker. Behind us, the police started tear-gassing people, so there was a moment of panic and everyone started running towards the top of the street. 'It started to get chaotic everywhere. There were crowds of people surging this way and that. People were trying to leave but the cops weren't letting people down the side streets — you had to walk back down the street towards the Place de la Concorde. 'It took a long time to get out and that killed the atmosphere a bit but we carried on towards Grands Boulevards, where there were loads of people, and it was much better.' At Place de la Bastille, east of the city centre, fans massed in their thousands to celebrate PSG's triumph. But a journalist from the German newspaper BILD reported having had to take shelter at the back of a restaurant after it came under attack from rioters. 'Paris made it 4-0. Again, there was great cheering. But this turned into hatred,' wrote Torsten Rumpf. 'The guests in the restaurant were attacked with fireworks and bottles, chairs and tables were thrown. Windows were broken. Fights broke out. 'I saw children and young women crying and heard loud screams. The air became stuffy with the smoke from the fireworks. After 10 minutes, the security guards brought the situation under control.' The French authorities reported that 491 arrests were made in Paris during the night of the game. Paris prefect of police Laurent Nunez told a press conference that 192 members of the public and nine police officers had been injured. In Paris, a 23-year-old scooter rider was killed after being hit by a car, while in the southwest town of Dax, a 17-year-old boy died after being stabbed in the chest. Investigations into both incidents are under way. Advertisement France's Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau posted on social media that 'barbarians have taken to the streets of Paris'. If it was a tragic footnote to append to a significant football match, it was also familiar. The following afternoon, a helicopter hovers in the overcast sky above the River Seine as PSG supporters exit the Invalides metro station and make their way across the Pont Alexandre III towards the Champs-Elysees for their team's triumphant trophy parade. Ousmane Toure, clad in a PSG home shirt and accompanied by his girlfriend, Angeline, had watched the match along with 45,000 fellow fans on the big screens at the Parc des Princes the night before. 'The atmosphere was incredible,' he says with a smile. 'Truly memorable.' But after setting out across Paris on his scooter after the game to revel in the festivities, he saw scenes that left him with memories that he will not look back on with any kind of fondness at all. 'I went out on the Periph (ring road) and it was a bit of a s*** show, to be honest,' he says. 'There were lots of people — I don't know where they'd come from — on motorbikes, blocking the traffic. They were trying to have a party but it wasn't very cool for the people in the cars. 'You'd go past certain streets and there were scenes of chaos. It was unfortunate because it gives a bad image of football and a bad image of the people of Paris. They should have been scenes of joy and they turned into scenes of horror.' On either side of the bridge, street vendors have opportunistically set up stalls offering refrigerated drinks. Cars speed past honking their horns, some twirling PSG flags and scarves from their windows, while youngsters in small groups nimbly dart and weave their way through the crowds on bicycles. Although the atmosphere is relaxed and festive, the sound of police sirens and the whir of the helicopter's blades serve as reminders that the authorities remain on high alert. Advertisement Eliot Nivet, strolling across the bridge with his friend, Pierre-Francois Kerbrat, says that the scenes that had marred the previous evening's celebrations were simply par for the course. 'It started kicking off during the match, which shows it can't have been connected to real supporters,' he says. 'We went to the Champs after and I was there from 11 o'clock until two in the morning. There were fires, like there always are; bikes that were set on fire but nothing out of the ordinary. 'Then the police did their job. There was a fair amount of tear gas. There were just loads and loads of people in every street. There was so much fervour and it's difficult to contain. We're not worried about today.' Arriving on the Right Bank of the Seine on Sunday, police have blocked off Avenue Winston Churchill, which leads straight to the Champs-Elysees. Three dark-grey police vans are parked across the street. Beside one of them, a black-clad police officer eyes the small crowd that has formed beside the crash barriers and mutters something into his walkie-talkie. The supporters there seem more concerned about missing the parade than inadvertently wandering into a riot. There were further skirmishes between supporters and riot police shortly before the trophy procession, as reported by L'Equipe. The clashes continued during Sunday evening, with Reuters reporting that police deployed tear gas when dozens of ticketless fans sought to enter the security perimeter, and again after supporters threw fireworks at police as the stadium emptied out. It was something of an achievement that it was even allowed to take place at all. Mindful of the scenes of serious disorder that had marred a previous PSG trophy parade in 2013 at the Place du Trocadero, which overlooks the Eiffel Tower, Paris authorities were initially minded to reject the club's request before being persuaded into performing a U-turn. Advertisement To cite a more recent example, Liverpool supporters will not need reminding of the carnage that took place before and after the 2022 Champions League final at the Stade de France, where fans were kettled and tear-gassed by police prior to the game, and then picked off by opportunistic muggers as they left the stadium afterwards. Patrick Mignon, a sports sociologist and author, says that eruptions of violence around sporting events in Paris reflect the underlying mistrust that exists between the police and disaffected young people from the city's disadvantaged suburbs. 'When you get events like this, which bring masses of people into the streets, they're an opportunity for people to display the tensions that exist within French society and the phenomenon of political polarisation,' he says. 'The conflict between young people from working-class neighbourhoods and the police is an old story. We also had riots here in 2022 and 2005. Paris is the place where all the tensions within French society are focused. 'We also know that any event that brings lots of people into the streets for a party also attracts young people who see these events as opportunities for all kinds of criminal activity: looting shops, pickpocketing, seeking confrontations with other young people or provoking the police.' Even at the most glorious moments in France's footballing history, tragedy has seldom been far away. After the great Saint-Etienne squad of the mid-1970s returned from beating Dutch side PSV in the European Cup semi-finals in 1976, one of the fans who rushed onto the runway at Boutheon airport to greet them was killed by the plane's propellers. When crowds flocked to the Champs-Elysees to celebrate France's victory over Brazil in the 1998 World Cup final, a panicked driver drove her car into a crowd at the Arc de Triomphe, killing one person and injuring 35. Two men died in different areas of France during the celebrations that followed Les Bleus' triumph at the 2018 World Cup, which also prompted scenes of violent disorder on the Champs-Elysees. Advertisement Of course, excessive celebration, enormous crowds of people and alcohol have proven to be a deadly combination after all manner of sporting events across the world. But as they sweep away the broken glass and patch up the wounded in Paris, there is no shrugging off a troubling sense of deja vu. (Header photo:)
USA Today
29 minutes ago
- USA Today
How to Watch Lorenzo Musetti vs. Frances Tiafoe at the 2025 Roland Garros: Live Stream, TV Channel
How to Watch Lorenzo Musetti vs. Frances Tiafoe at the 2025 Roland Garros: Live Stream, TV Channel Lorenzo Musetti will face Frances Tiafoe in the Roland Garros quarterfinals on Tuesday, June 3. Musetti enters the quarterfinals after winning in four sets, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, over Holger Vitus Nodskov Rune on Sunday in the Round of 16. Tiafoe heads into this match following a three-set victory against Daniel Altmaier (6-3, 6-4, 7-6) in his last match on Sunday in the Round of 16. Watch Tennis Channel on Fubo! Lorenzo Musetti vs. Frances Tiafoe: live stream info & TV channel Tournament: Roland Garros Roland Garros Round: Quarterfinal Quarterfinal Date: Tuesday, June 3 Tuesday, June 3 Live Stream: Watch Tennis Channel on Fubo Watch Tennis Channel on Fubo Court Surface: Clay Lorenzo Musetti vs. Frances Tiafoe matchup stats Musetti has a record of 14-4 on clay this year. When playing on clay surfaces, Musetti has a 76.6% winning percentage in service games and a 32.6% winning percentage in return games (147 service games won out of 192, and 61 return games won out of 187 on clay). On clay this year, Musetti ranks 24th in break point winning percentage (38.5%) after going 50-for-130. Musetti was beaten by Carlos Alcaraz short of the final (3-6, 6-7) on May 16 in the semifinals of his last tournament, the Internazionali BNL d'Italia. Tiafoe is 11-6 in seven tournaments on clay so far this year. In terms of serve/return winning percentages on clay, Tiafoe has won 78.7% of his games on serve, and 31.2% on return. Tiafoe has converted 51 of 140 break points on clay (36.4%), and is 22nd in break points won. In the Hamburg European Open, Tiafoe's previous tournament, he clashed with No. 57-ranked Roberto Bautista Agut in the Round of 16 on May 21 and lost 2-6, 3-6. Tennis odds courtesy of BetMGM Sportsbook. Odds updated Sunday at 9:59 PM ET. For a full list of sports betting odds, access USA TODAY Sports Betting Scores Odds Hub.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
French Open order of play, today's results and Roland Garros schedule
Novak Djokovic is among those in action on Monday (REUTERS) The quarter-final line-up will be confirmed at the French Open on Monday with Novak Djokovic, Coco Gauff and Jack Draper all in action on a hectic day at Roland Garros. Djokovic faces a resurgent Cameron Norrie in the fourth round looking to continue his chase for a 25th grand slam with the veteran yet to drop a set in this year's tournament. Advertisement World No 1 Jannik Sinner headlines the night session with Andrey Rublev likely to provide an examination of the Italian's game having beaten him here three years ago, while Draper takes on Alexander Bublik in an encounter that could provide a few fireworks. Gauff opens proceedings on Philippe-Chatrier and will be followed on to court by compatriot Jessica Pegula, with the American finding her feet on clay but likely to have a hostile crowd to deal with as she encounters home hope Lois Boisson. The order of play for today is below: French Open order of play - Monday 2 June (from 10am BST) Court Philippe-Chatrier Ekaterina Alexandrova [20] vs Coco Gauff [2] Advertisement Lois Boisson vs Jessica Pegula [3] Cameron Norrie vs Novak Djokovic [6] not before 7.15pm BST Jannik Sinner [1] vs Andrey Rublev [17] Court Suzanne-Lenglen Mirra Andreeva [6] vs Daria Kasatkina [17] Alexander Zverev [3] vs Tallon Griekspoor Madison Keys [7] vs Hailey Baptiste Alexander Bublik vs Jack Draper [5]
