Tommy Paul vs Ben Shelton Prediction & Betting Tips - ATP US Open

Prediction published on 03/08/2023, 06:45  by Devesh Jaganath | Modified on 03/09/2023 at 09:55 in Tennis Predictions

World number 12 Tommy Paul will take on 36th-ranked Ben Shelton in the fourth round of the US Open on Sunday. The winner of this match will move on to face either unseeded Dominic Stricker or ninth seeded Taylor Fritz in the quarter-finals. These two met once in the past, and Paul won the match at the Australian Open earlier this year. The American has been made to work for his place in this round, as he comes into the match after three testing encounters. He beat Stefano Travaglia in four sets and played out a grueling five sets against Roman Safiulin in round two. In the last round, he dropped the third set against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina but corrected to claim the match in the fourth set. Paul has looked good since returning to the hard court. He reached the semi-final at the Canada Masters and the round of 16 in Cincinnati, where he was beaten by Carlos Alcaraz. The American is now 40-20 for the year and 25-9 on the hard. 

Meanwhile, Ben Shelton has defeated Pedro Cachin, Dominic Thiem, and Aslan Karatsev in this competition. Those results have seen him improve his ranking to inside the top 40, and he is now within touching distance of his peak ranking of 35th. However, his form on the hard surface since the grass swing has not been great. The 21-year-old was knocked out in the first round in Atlanta and Washington, both times by qualifier Juncheng Shang. He did have tough draws in the Toronto and Cincinnati Masters tournaments losing to Alcaraz and Tsitsipas respectively. Shelton's best performance on hard courts came at the Australian Open at the start of the year. He was beaten in the quarter-final by this opponent. Shelton is now 17-22 for the year and 11-11 on the hard court. Can he manage to pull off an upset against his compatriot?