Britain’s Paul Jubb defied an astonishing ranking gap of 275 places to beat top seed Ben Shelton 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(8) and book his spot in the semi-finals of the Mallorca Open, where he plays Austrian Sebastian Ofner for a place in the final.
Shelton had beaten 75th ranked Rinky Hijikata yesterday for the loss of four games, and was surely not expecting such a difficult time on court today. But immense credit must go to the Brit who saved a match point and finally converted after seven of his own after two hours and 45 minutes.
“It just kept getting better and better throughout the match. I was thriving out here tonight,” said Jubb on court. “Super, super happy. This is obviously huge for me. Last year was so tough, injured most of the year. I’ve been working very, very hard to get back to this point.”
The pair traded the first two sets but were neck and neck in the decider. With nothing to separate them, it would come down to the fine margins, yet Shelton was staring down the barrel at 3-4, 0-40. He escaped the game to level up but offered two more breakpoints (match points) when serving at 5-6 down but held in a ten-minute game.
In the tie-break, Jubb took a 4-1 lead but was pegged back. Yet he still had two more match points when 6-4 up but was unable to convert. Shelton took the lead for the first time to go 8-7 ahead but unforced errors crept in and he lost the last point on a wayward forehand to hand Jubb the biggest win of his career.
Meanwhile, veteran Gael Monfils continued his grass court resurgence with a tough win over Roberto Bautista Agut 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in very blustery conditions and a match lasting over two and a half hours. The Frenchman has not played on grass for three years and has enjoyed his time back on the surface.
“[That was] very tough. Roberto is a big warrior,” said Monfils on court afterwards. “Even in the second set when he came back, I was up a break at 4-3, then he played really good, really solid. And then at the end, you could see the nerves were there. The crowd was behind both of us, so it was a big battle.”
Monfils now plays Alejandro Tabilo for a place in the final. The in-form Chilean finally stopped youngster Jakub Mensik’s fabulous run– he had beaten top seed Christopher Eubanks two days ago – and is now into his fifth semi-final of 2024 alone. He broke serve in the final game of each set to win 6-4, 6-4.
In today’s other match, Sebastian Ofner beat Australia’s Alex Michelsen 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
