Top-seeded Jannik Sinner showed no signs of being impacted by an elbow injury, getting past 10th-seeded Ben Shelton 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-4 to advance to the semifinals of Wimbledon on Wednesday in London.
Sinner, of Italy, will be making his second appearance in the Wimbledon semifinals. He lost to Novak Djokovic in straight sets in 2023.
“I’m very, very happy about today’s performance,” Sinner said on-court after the two-hour, 19-minute match. “Playing against him (Shelton) is so difficult. You have chances and then he serves very well, as we saw in the last game. Overall, we play each other more and more, we got to know each other a little bit better, and I’m looking forward to these kinds of battles.”
Sinner continued his run against Shelton, moving to 6-1 in their head-to-head series. It was the first match of this Wimbledon fortnight between Top 10 players, and Sinner showed why he’s No. 1.
The Italian limited his mistakes, recording 33 winners and 17 unforced errors. Shelton had 29 winners — 14 of them from service aces — and 38 unforced errors.
For Sinner, the best news was that his elbow issue is improving.
“When you are in a match with a lot of tension, you try to not think about it,” said Sinner, who wore a sleeve on his arm. “It has improved a lot from yesterday to today. Yesterday my day was very short on the practice court, 20 minutes with the coaches only. But I (was) looking forward to (the match).
“This is no excuse. There is no better stage to play tennis, and I think I showed this today.”
Shelton squandered the chance to win the first set. In the tie-breaker, he went up 2-0, then lost seven straight points to drop the set.
The match featured only two service breaks — both in the last games of the second and third set with Shelton serving down 5-4.
In the semifinal, Sinner will face the winner of the later match between seven-time Wimbledon champ Djokovic, the fifth seed, and unseeded Italian Flavio Cobolli. Should Cobolli win, it would be the first time multiple Italians have played in the Wimbledon semifinals.
–Field Level Media
