Tempers flared, tension mounted, and Shelton soared.
Ben Shelton found himself a break down in the third set against Italy’s Flavio Cobolli on Sunday night in Toronto, but the American dug himself out of the hole to defeat his adversary, 6-4 4-6 7-6(1).
In the process Shelton earned his 100th career win, and the 22-year-old advances to face Alex de Minaur in his fourth career Masters 1000 quarterfinal as he seeks his first trip to a semifinal at this level.
With the win Shelton becomes the the 8th man born in 21st century reach 100 wins, and the 9th active American man to achieve the feat.
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“I think I was really mentally tough tonight,” Shelton later told the media. “I got to give credit to Flavio, he did a lot of things throughout the match that made it difficult. I thought he played very well. He’s really fast, neutralizes a lot of things that I do well, and that’s always a tough matchup for me, so just happy to come through it.”
The battle intensified down the stretch, as Shelton rallied from 5-3 down to level up and force a breaker with the 23-year-old.
It wasn’t exactly clear what Cobolli had done, but when the pair met as the match concluded, Shelton called out the Italian for a gesture that he made. Cobolli and Shelton had a long discussion, with Cobolli saying it wasn’t directed at Shelton, as he also said that he was simply voicing frustration at himself for squandering a lead.
“He just made a gesture in the tiebreaker in asked him about it. He said it wasn’t towards me so we’re cool,” Shelton said on court after the match.
Ben Shelton on the exchange with Flavio Cobolli after their match in Toronto
“Can you walk us through that discussion?”
Ben: “He just made a gesture in the tiebreaker in asked him about it. He said it wasn’t towards me so we’re cool.” pic.twitter.com/F7DtsDNTvS
The American was pressed about the issue again in his post-match interview and said: “He said it wasn’t towards me. We’re good. We talked about it in the locker room, so I’m not going to answer any more questions about that. There’s no story, we’re good, that’s it.”
Cobolli seemed to have the match in hand, serving at 5-4, 15-0 in the final set, but his luck went south from there. The Italian double faulted to give Shelton two break points and the American converted the second as Cobolli missed a forehand wide to take the score to 5-all.
He held in the next game to lead 6-5, and even though he squandered a match point in the 12th game, Shelton dominated the ensuing tiebreak to close out the win in 2:24.
“I was able to get a second chance by holding my serve and getting to the point where he had to serve it out,” he said. “It’s not always easy, especially on a night like this where it’s windy and not as hot, not bouncing as high as it is during the day, to serve out sets in matches. Same with me in the first set. I got broke serving for the set, and then he got broke trying to serve to stay in it.
“It was a nervy match and it was difficult, I think kind of after getting through that game and, you know, being able to bring my energy level back to where I wanted it to be at, and to get a confident hold at 5-all was huge for me.”
By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, July 31, 2025 Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
The Montreal service line loomed like a fault line and Coco Gauff was blowing herself up.
The top-seeded Gauff coughed up 14 double faults but turned an early implosion into an inspirational ending playing her most dynamic tennis in the final set.
Gauff shook off a seven game spiral, surging back to score a 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory over Veronika Kudermetova to battle into the Montreal round of 16 today.
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Down a set and a break, Roland Garros champion Gauff successfully fought off her own sloppy serving and shotmaker Kudermetova and will face either Canadian wild card Victoria Mboko or Czech Marie Bouzkova for a quarterfinal spot.
“I mean the goal is to survive and advance—we all know it’s not my best but it’s good enough for today,” Gauff said. “Mentally, I’m very proud of myself. There’s obviously parts of my game I’m working on, one of them being the serve…I look forward to the future when I’m feeling my best hopeful it’s a little bit easier.”
Through two rounds, Gauff has clanked an unsightly 37 double faults yet she’s reinforced her reputation for resilience raising her 2025 three-set record to 9-1 today.
The two-time Grand Slam champion has the ability to compartmentalize serve struggles, shirk stretches of shoddy play and fight furiously with the match on the line. The question is: Can Gauff pick up her serving as she progresses, and the competition intensifies? The good news, Gauff said, is she’s finding ways to win with her service game “on a crutch.”
“I mean, there’s positives and there’s negatives,” Gauff told the media in Montreal. “Obviously I am so disappointed in myself when it comes to that part of the game just because I didn’t play D.C. to work on that and made changes to that and doing well in practice and serving really well in practice. Yeah, so I just would like for it to transfer to the match.
“It does give positives that, okay, I’m winning these matches having literally like one part of my game on a crutch. So it’s like if I can stand on both feet, then I can only imagine that it would be a lot more straightforward and a lot more easier for me.”
Gauff committed 23 double faults—nearly a full set of doubles—in her opener vs. Danielle Collins yet still squeezed out a 7-5, 4-6 7-6(2) victory relying on her grit and legs to get it done in two hours, 56 minutes.
The normally feisty Collins’ continuously dropping her Tecnifibre racquet to the court in a show of physical frustration that certainly didn’t help her cause. Gauff kept calm despite the deluge of double faults and dug out a third-set tiebreaker, improving to 11-2 lifetime in third-set tiebreakers.
Today, the world No. 2 jumped out to a 4-1 lead. Soon the double fault ghosts haunted Gauff again. Part of the problem today is Gauff sometimes chased her ball toss and was hitting a hybrid kick-slice serve in the opening set: She wasn’t getting the pronation to bring the kick back down in the court but wasn’t slicing the serve severely enough to control it either.
Three double faults in the ninth game saw Gauff gift the break and a 5-4 lead to Kudermetova. If you’re Gauff—or her coaches—you might just want to hit some hard slice serves right into the body in those moments to sustain the racquet acceleration while getting enough net clearance to bring the ball down into the box.
Kudermetova cracked the wide serve on the deuce side to create space. When Kudermetova cranked an inside-out forehand winner she snatched the opening set exploiting seven double faults from Gauff.
From 1-4 down, Kudermetova tore through seven straight games building a 6-4, 2-0 lead.
Empowered by her run to the Wimbledon doubles championship earlier this month, Kudermetova held a break point to go up 4-1, but Gauff denied it. Gauff spun a forehand down the line followed by a backhand strike down the opposite sideline to hold for 2-3.
Striking her forehand with more conviction, Gauff drilled a diagonal forehand winner to break back and level six games into the second set.
Many players resort to the slice forehand when pushed wide on the stretch to extend the point. At times today, Gauff opted to hit slice forehands on balls right down the middle when she had time to set up and hit her traditional topspin forehand. You wonder why she doesn’t take the short preparation steps, create space between her body and the ball and rip some of those forehands just to get her groove going on that wing.
Deadlocked at 5-all, the second set turned on a series of close calls. Gauff badly botched a forehand sitter from nearly right on top of the net choosing to slice her forehand rather than hit it to face a break point.
Surprising the Russian with the drop shot, Gauff got away with it when Kudermetova caught up to the ball but shoveled her forehand out. Given new life, Gauff hammered a wide ace then jolted her opponent backward with a body serve digging through a tough hold for 6-5.
Knowing Gauff’s backhand is her more stable wing, Kudermetova inexplicably played the American’s backhand wing and paid the price as Gauff gained double set point in the 12th game. Kudermetova saved the first set point, but again challenged the Gauff backhand and netted a high backhand volley.
Playing from behind for most of the set, a gritty Gauff broke to force a final set after one hour, 56 minutes.
You can question Gauff’s serve and her sometime flaky forehand, but she is unquestionably one of the toughest competitors on the WTA Tour. After scraping into a third set, Gauff elevated soaring through eight straight points to open the final set. Gauff slashed a forehand crosscourt winner extending to 3-0. Kudermetova, who was sometimes barking at her husband and coach Sergey Demekhine by then, rapidly ran out of answers.
Reading the Russian’s wide serve on the deuce side, Gauff hit some of her finest forehand returns in that final set. A match that saw Gauff dump 14 double faults ended with Kudermetova hitting her first double fault.
Watching Gauff through the first two rounds of Montreal is a bit like watching a sprinter stack her own lane with hurdles right before the race yet still manage to overcome all obstacles and cross the finish line first.
“My energy level is there. I’m not quite at the point where these matches tire me out physically,” Gauff said of winning successive three-setters. “Yeah, I was training in Florida for three weeks having, like, three-, three-and-a-half-hour practices, plus fitness in 90-degree weather with humidity. So it doesn’t feel as long as it is said, but I would love to get these matches under the two-hour mark, but if that’s what it takes, I’m here to be out here.”
Earlier, Marta Kostyuk rose from a dramatic fall out-dueling Daria Kasatkina 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(4) in a match highlighted by one of the craziest points of the tournament.
Two points into the tiebreaker, Kostyuk slipped and fell behind the baseline, dropped her racquet, picked it up extended the point with a forehand and eventually won the point after climbing off the court.
Kostyuk converted seven of 11 break points and exploited 11 double faults from Kasatkina for her second straight three-set win.
The 24th-seeded Ukranian will face next American McCartney Kessler.
The 28th-seeded Kessler conquered fourth-seeded Mirra Andreeva 7-6(5), 6-4.
