Thirty-year-old Japanese player Taro Daniel provided the upset of the tournament so far when he bettered top seed Ben Shelton to advance to the final of the ASB Classic today.
Daniel reached just his second ATP Tour final with a 7-5 7-6 victory over Shelton, after an epic tiebreak where he prevailed 11-9 in front of a packed ASB Tennis Arena.
While Shelton was unable to get his timing on-song today, there was no doubting the accuracy of the Daniel serve and the precision with his ground strokes, with Shelton unable to break his serve.
Nothing separated the pair through to 5-5, with Sheldon missing an opportunity in the next game and then dropping his own serve for Daniel to claim the first set 7-5.
The second set was a slugfest, with Sheldon pushing to unleash his powerful serve, reaching around 230km/h, but he could not convert that into an advantage.