American youngster Learner Tien earned his third Top 10 win on Wednesday, beating countryman and top seed Ben Shelton 6-4, 7-6(2) to reach the quarterfinals of the Mallorca Championships.
The 19-year-old committed 16 fewer unforced errors than Shelton (22-38) and rallied from 1-4 in the second set to eventually triumph after one hour and 41 minutes in the pair’s first ATP head-to-head meeting.
“I thought I returned really well today,” Tien said. “I felt it was tough to serve today with the wind. I felt my toss moved around a lot, but I thought I returned really, really well and gave myself a lot of looks on return games.”
Tien, who defeated Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev earlier this year, is the youngest player to defeat a Top-10 star on grass since Felix Auger-Aliassime beat Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Queen’s Club in 2019. Into his third tour-level quarterfinal, Tien will next meet Corentin Moutet of France in the ATP 250 grass-court event.
Moutet, who upset Taylor Fritz at the Queen’s Club in London last week, made good use of the underhand serve, sending down as many as six in his second-round win against Daniel Altmaier of Germany on Wednesday.
The 26-year-old from Paris won three points on the underarm service as he defeated Altmaier 7-6(3), 7-6(3) in two hours and 14 minutes and secured a place in the quarterfinals, his first of 2025.
In another action, Alex Michelsen defeated Brandon Holt 6-4, 6-4. Michelsen, who fell to his good friend Tien in the semifinals at the 2024 Next Gen ATP Finals, takes on Roberto Bautista Agut in the last eight in Mallorca. The Spaniard, a semi-finalist at The Queen’s Club last week, defeated Bernard Tomic 6-3, 6-3.
The No. 83 player in the ATP Rankings, Moutet owns a 6-2 Mallorca record, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, having reached the quarterfinals in 2023.
