Frances Tiafoe snatched victory from the jaws of defeat as he booked his third US Open semi-final across five enthralling sets by beating fellow American Alex Michelsen 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6(6). 

The 11th seed had high hopes of playing his third US Open semi-final in a year where there was a strong feeling that one of the home favourites could have a chance of taking home the trophy. 

Tiafoe has now become the first American man to earn a place in the semi-finals, after pulling off a heroic comeback from two sets down. 

Meanwhile, Michelsen’s winless five-set record will roll on, as will his record on Arthur Ashe, where he previously won just six games in a brutal defeat at the hands of Jannik Sinner on his way to the 2024 title. 

This loss will sting the Grand Slam quarter-final debutant all the more after the Southern California native played a pitch-perfect game in the first two sets to flummox his more-experienced opponent – and see him serve for the match. 

‘Obviously, he gave me some gifts, and slowly, slowly I tried to get my rhythm back, and then kept getting better,’ Tiafoe said of his performance to pull off the third-set win and spark his comeback. ‘But he’s a hell of a player, and easily could have won today, so shout out Alex Michelsen.’

Frances Tiafoe pulled off a towering win in the final fifth-set tiebreak to book his US Open semi-final spot

Alex Michelsen had served for the match but after the third set slipped away, he never found the dominance he had shown in the first two sets

After the match, the 22-year-old was left in floods of tears and consoled by Tiafoe on-court

The emotion of the experience and letting the match slip away was too much for Michelsen, who left the court in floods of tears. 

Tiafoe, who is much admired by his younger countryman, consoled him at the net with a thoughtful hug.  

Both Tiafoe and Michelsen played out their opening stages of the match inside the over-23,000-capacity stadium against a more subdued crowd, with many having left their seats for a break after the conclusion of Aryna Sabalenka’s sensational clash with Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova. 

For Tiafoe, a big-stage player, the lack of atmosphere may have proven particularly fatal, but both men struggled to hold serve in the first set. 

At the fourth game of the second set, Tiafoe was heard remonstrating that his game wasn’t ‘f***ing working’, and struggled to rise above a flat performance that lacked the aggression necessary to go toe-to-toe with Michelsen. 

‘Everyone was asleep in the first couple of hours, and I was asleep too,’ he teased after the match, before crediting the crowd with giving him the energy to roar back from the brink of a painful loss. 

The younger player was aided by an increasingly strong serving game, handing him the serve out the match in the third set. Then came Tiafoe’s all-important break, setting off a string of game wins which forced a fourth set – and nearly two more hours on-court. 

Tiafoe’s dominance continued well into that too, but as if running out of gas, he tightened up in the fifth – as Michelsen had after seemingly throwing away his chance of winning in the third set. 

The 28-year-old had to wait until the fourth game of the set to put a game on the board after succumbing to the early break, but again, the pendulum of the match swung towards him just after Michelsen was able to wrench back momentum. Tiafoe chased his first hold with his first break of the set, with another hold levelling the set at 3-3. 

Tiafoe struggled to find his game during the opening sets but clicked into high gear as the match wore on

But Michelsen kept pace, tracking Tiafoe by pouring all of his aggression into the last game, which set up the rivals’ final 10-point tiebreak. Tiafoe’s serving, which had let him down in the early stages of the match, was superlative in the fifth set, and provided the weapon that would eventually topple a battling Michelsen in the decider. 

With his victory, Tiafoe’s complicated relationship with the Arthur Ashe Stadium will have become a little brighter. 

The Cincinnati Open finalist admitted that he favours playing on Louis Armstrong Stadium, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center’s second showcourt, where he has a formidable 10 wins without loss.   

Tiafoe will hope too that his winning run on Arthur Ashe continues, as he prepares to meet the winner of Ben Shelton’s clash with Carlos Alcaraz.