Carlos Alcaraz battles past Ben Shelton at Roland Garros for 100th clay-court win of career

At just 22 years old, Carlos Alcaraz has already reached a lot of milestones, and at Roland Garros on Sunday he reached yet another one, battling past Ben Shelton in the fourth round, 7-6 (8), 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, for the 100th clay-court win of his career.

He’s the first man born in the 2000s to win 100 matches on clay.

MOST CLAY-COURT WINS, MEN BORN IN 2000 OR LATER (tour-level):

• 100: Carlos Alcaraz [born in 2003]
• 81: Sebastian Baez [born in 2000]
• 76: Lorenzo Musetti [born in 2002]
• 62: Jannik Sinner [born in 2001]
• 54: Holger Rune [born in 2003]

And his placement in the next list didn’t change—he was already third going into today—but as he keeps piling up the wins, Alcaraz will keep moving closer to moving up on the list of best career winning percentages on clay for a man in the Open Era.

He currently only trails Rafael Nadal and Bjorn Borg, who won a combined total of 20 Roland Garros titles between them.

BEST WINNING PERCENTAGE ON CLAY, MEN IN OPEN ERA (tour-level, minimum 100 matches played):

• 90.5%: Rafael Nadal [484-51]
• 86.1%: Bjorn Borg [285-46]
• 84.0%: Carlos Alcaraz [100-19]
• 81.0%: Ivan Lendl [329-77]
• 80.5%: Novak Djokovic [293-71]

Alcaraz's match against Shelton was a grinder from the start, beginning with a marathon 69-minute first set where neither player blinked on serve, and then Alcaraz had to fight off three set points—two down 6-4, another down 7-6—to finally clinch a one-set lead.

The Spaniard got the first break of the match late in the second set en route to a two-set lead, and it looked like he was going to close it out in straight sets as he brought up a break point with Shelton serving at 4-all, ad-out in the third set, but the American saved it, held and then broke serve to send the match to a fourth set.

Alcaraz rebounded, though, breaking one last time for a 2-1 lead in that fourth set and riding that break to a three-hour, 19-minute win.

Up next for the world No. 2 in the quarterfinals will be another American, Tommy Paul, who reached his first Roland Garros quarterfinal with a 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 win over Australia's Alexei Popyrin.

Alcaraz leads Paul in their head-to-head, 4-2, and has won their last three meetings in a row—he also won the pair's only previous clay-court meeting, a 6-3, 7-6 (7) victory right here at Stade Roland Garros in the quarterfinals of the Paris Olympics last year.