Dallas (US), Feb 8 – Ben Shelton made a grand debut at the Dallas Open with an aggressive all-court game to beat fellow American Michael Mmoh 6-3, 6-3 and earned his sixth tour-level quarterfinal appearance and his second on home soil after his electric run to the 2023 US Open semifinal.
In his first match since a third-round defeat to Adrian Mannarino at the Australian Open, the third-seeded Shelton lost just three points on serve and ripped 23 winners in an efficient 63-minute victory on Wednesday night.
“I think the biggest thing for me is my movement. I think a year and a half ago I had two left feet. I couldn’t move on the court. Probably there’s a lot of people in the stands right now who were moving on the tennis court better than me. But I feel like that’s the part of my game that improved the most and I’m moving at a pretty high level right now,” Shelton said after the match.
The American will face seventh seed Jordan Thompson or lucky loser Denis Kudla in the quarterfinals.
In other matches, Australian James Duckworth scored an early upset on Wednesday with a 7-6(3), 6-4 win against Christopher Eubanks. American Marcos Giron also scored an upset, knocking off sixth seed Max Purcell to reach the quarterfinals.
Tommy Paul closed out the day’s play by beating Japan’s Taro Daniel 6-3, 6-2. His quarter-final opponent will be eighth seed Dominik Koepfer or Rinky Hijikata.
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