Five U.S. men reached the round of 16 at the US Open for the first time since 1995, and three are now in the quarterfinals, setting up a genuine opportunity to end a drought that has lasted more than two decades since Andy Roddick won the last U.S. men’s Grand Slam title at Flushing Meadows in 2003.
Frances Tiafoe and Alex Michelsen will meet in one quarterfinal. Ben Shelton will face defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in the other quarterfinal, a matchup Shelton said he has been looking forward to. Learner Tien has a chance to add a fourth American to the quarterfinals Monday when he faces Karen Khachanov.
Tiafoe, the No. 11 seed, beat 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev 7-6 (1), 6-4, 7-6 (6) and said playing in front of friends, family and people you love is amazing. He said tennis is so international that most matches are played in Europe, and when the tour comes home, you want to put on a show for the people who do not get to see you often.
Michelsen, 22, from California, beat No. 27 Tomas Etcheverry 7-6 (6), 6-4, 6-4 and is the only man in the tournament who has yet to drop a set. After reaching his first Grand Slam quarterfinal, Michelsen said he had worked really hard to get to this point and that he is happy but not super surprised because of all the work he has put in his whole life.
Shelton beat Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 in what Shelton described as his best performance of the tournament. He predicted fireworks in a potential quarterfinal with Alcaraz. Shelton said he has never played Alcaraz in New York and is in exactly the position he wants to be in.
The drought in context
The U.S. has not had a men’s Grand Slam champion since Roddick in 2003, and opportunities have been rare in the more than two decades since. The closest the Americans have come in recent memory was two years ago at the US Open, when Taylor Fritz beat Tiafoe in the first all-American Grand Slam semifinal since 2005 and became the first American man in a major final since Roddick in 2009. Jannik Sinner beat Fritz in straight sets for the title.
In the 1995 US Open, the U.S. had eight men in the round of 16, advanced three to the semifinals and won the title when Pete Sampras beat Jim Courier in the semis before defeating No. 1 Andre Agassi in the final.
American tennis success in 2026 has been more concentrated in the women’s game. Coco Gauff has won two Grand Slam titles in recent years and Jessica Pegula has reached No. 3 in the world. Taylor Townsend, who lost to women’s No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka on Sunday, said Gauff and Pegula have been consistently inside the top five for years, and named Shelton, Tiafoe, Paul and Fritz as a great group of men making their own run.
What Sunday looked like
All four men’s fourth-round matches on Sunday featured at least one U.S. player, and the U.S. won three of them. Alcaraz was the only player who beat an American, defeating No. 20 seed Tommy Paul in the afternoon.
The quarterfinal on the U.S. side of the draw sets up a Tiafoe-Michelsen match that the winner must survive before facing either Alcaraz or Shelton. It is the most the men’s draw has favored U.S. players at a Grand Slam in a generation.
