Ben Shelton topples hometown favorite Frances Tiafoe in Washington, D.C.

Frances Tiafoe's quest to win the Mubadala Citi DC Open title in his backyard will have to wait another year.

In an all-American quarterfinal on Friday night in the nation's capital, fourth-seeded Ben Shelton got the better of Tiafoe for the third time in four career meetings, 7-6(2), 6-4. Shelton has now reached the semifinals in D.C. in back-to-back years, making him the third American to do that this century after Andre Agassi (2001-04) and Steve Johnson (2015-16).

All four matches between Tiafoe and Shelton have come in a less than two-year span. After Tiafoe got revenge for a four-set 2023 US Open defeat to Shelton last year in Queens in five sets, he celebrated by exclaiming that Arthur Ashe Stadium was "his house."

But at his hometown tournament, which he grew up attending since childhood in College Park, Md., Shelton got the last word.

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Tiafoe failed to serve out the first set at 6-5 before Shelton roared back. Continuing his success in tiebreakers, the lefty won six straight points to take a one set lead, and broke Tiafoe again at 3-3 on the way to a straight-sets win.

"We know tennis is a long journey. We’re going to play each other a bunch of times," Shelton said post-match, adding that "it's tough not to cheer for a guy like that" after the two hugged it out at the net.

Shelton finished the match with 29 winners to Tiafoe's 20. He also hit just 18 unforced errors to Tiafoe's 28. But most impressively, 31 of Shelton's 55 serves went unreturned.

"This court does a lot for my serve," Shelton later added. "The ability to get the ball out of the zone is huge, especially against a guy like Foe who is so good in the pocket. So my ability for my flat serves not only to be coming in at 145 [mph] but also rising above his shoulders is huge.

"Second serve, too. He's one of the best in the world when he's locked in, attacking second serves and making you feel like you're on the back foot, taking a second serve and coming to the net. My winning percentage on second serve was probably the highest that it's ever been against him.

"My aggressive brand of serving, and then I was willing to take chances on the return of serve, and I executed a lot. So I think that combination was kind of tough to deal with in these conditions."

The 22-year-old seeks his second final of 2025, after finishing runner-up to Alexander Zverev in Munich, against either No. 1 seed Taylor Fritz or No. 12 seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.