American No. 8 seed Ben Shelton defeated Hubert Hurkacz 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 7-5 on Wednesday to reach the third round of the US Open, after falling short of that round in his previous two majors.
As the hard-court Slams go, Shelton has reached the third round at eight straight majors, advancing past that stage once in his US Open career, when he made the semifinals in 2023.
"I think being battle-tested is great," Shelton, who also went four sets in the opening round, said of being pushed early in the tournament. "I don't think you want to be playing five-setters all the time. Maybe I could have won this match more efficiently today, but I thought that, you know, a lot of it was just credit to him and the level that he started to bring. I think that had I not got pushed the way he pushed me today, there are so many things that I've wanted to clean up over the last couple of days that naturally came out and continued to improve throughout the match.
"Playing a match like that definitely, you know, benefits me moving forward."