Learner Tien flashed back to being a kid during Indian Wells upset of Ben Shelton

A decade ago, Learner Tien was a promising young tennis player sitting courtside inside Stadium 1 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, dreaming about facing, and beating, the world's best players on the biggest stages.

On Sunday at Indian Wells, Tien did that with a three-set upset of No. 8 seed Ben Shelton to reach the fourth round of his home event for the first time. And he couldn't help thinking about his younger self when as he did it.

"It means a lot," Tien told reporters after his 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-3 win. "The court I played on today, I remember exactly where I was sitting in that same stadium when I was a kid, so it's really cool, it's really a full-circle moment for me. Just really special to play here and especially to win here."

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Tien recognized that Shelton, who skipped the customary press conference after his second-round comeback against Reilly Opelka due to feeling unwell, "came out not feeling 100%, but he’s an amazing competitor and he came out and gave it his all."

Nonetheless, Shelton used his big serve to keep the lead throughout the first set, until Tien won the first three points of the tiebreaker to wrestle away the set. In the third, the two players traded holds where they each saved a break point to start, before Tien won three straight games from 2-2 on the way to running his career record against Shelton to 2-0.

The two-hour and 10-minute win continued a recent trend of success for Tien against top players. He now owns a 6-5 career record against the game's elite, but says he approaches every match, no matter the opponent, the same way. He takes an 0-1 head-to-head record against No. 18 seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina into their fourth-round match as he seeks a first-ever ATP Masters 1000 quarterfinal.

"Whether I'm a favorite or whether I'm an underdog, I go out, and I don't really think about it," he said. "I think once the match starts, like I said, you're just out there trying to adapt to what's happening.

"Rankings and previous matches go out the window. You're just trying to work through the current match. Whether I'm a favorite or whether I'm not, I just go out there and I just try to compete as hard as I can."

"I try to approach each point like it has equal value, and I feel like that sometimes helps take the nerves away off of some of these big points, big games, when I just try to think of each point as having equal value," he added, "and I just try to navigate through these games without thinking of the overall score."