Mallorca (Spain), June 25 (IANS) 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.--IANSbsk/(Disclaimer: This post has been auto published from IANS news agency without any modification to the text and has not been reviewed by editor)
