Tiafoe proud of 'epic' win over good friend Shelton

Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton are good pals off the tennis court and after the latter promised a "war" in their US Open third-round encounter on Aug 30, the crowd were brought to their feet on several points and rallies as the match went the distance.

- 

In the end, it was Tiafoe who rallied to beat his fellow American in an electrifying five-setter, avenging a quarter-final loss to Shelton at Flushing Meadows last season.

Tiafoe, with a brilliant return game and aggressive play at the net, won 4-6, 7-5, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-3 to line up a fourth-round clash with Australian Alexei Popyrin.

"Losing last year to him, (I) struggled for a long time," he said. "Played really, really bad for a very, very long time. A lot of things have happened since then. I struggled with a lot of things, motivationwise, things like that, taking the game for granted.