ATP Tour

Altmaier tops Shelton for Hamburg QF spot: 'It's a crazy comeback'

Daniel Altmaier produced an inspired comeback in front of his home fans on Tuesday evening at the Bitpanda Hamburg Open, where he stunned World No. 6 Ben Shelton 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals at the ATP 500 event.

Shelton, who was riding a six-match winning streak on German clay after lifting the trophy in Munich last month, failed to serve out the match at 5-4 in the second set. The No. 65 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, Altmaier then produced a series of stunning defensive escapes to spark his comeback hopes, before eventually prevailing after two hours, 50 minutes.

“If you see this match, it’s a crazy comeback,” Altmaier said after earning his seventh Lexus ATP Head2Head win over a Top-10 player. “I’m proud. I stuck to my game. I felt it was a little unfair being a set and 4-5 down, because I felt I was playing quite well. But I’m glad to get through in the end.”

Altmaier entered Hamburg with a modest 4-13 record on the season, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, though he showed signs of encouraging form when he pushed World No. 3 Alexander Zverev in their Madrid clash. Now, the 27-year-old Altmaier is coming alive on home soil in Hamburg, where he is into his 13th ATP Tour quarter-final, and sixth on clay.

Altmaier will next meet Tommy Paul or Tomas Martin Etcheverry. The pair split sets on court M1 before the second-round match was suspended due to darkness.

Shelton earned a courageous three-set win over Marcos Giron in the first round, but was unable to come through another decider against Altmaier. The American has now lost two of his three tour-level matches since triumphing in Munich, having fallen to opening-round defeats in Madrid and Rome.