There is a thin line at the top of professional tennis. There is no better example of that than the Jannik Sinner and Ben Shelton quarterfinal match at Wimbledon 2025. Shelton has a huge serve and a strong mental approach to the game, but Sinner does everything just a little better.
Shelton hits his serve slightly bigger than Sinner's, but the Italian is more efficient with better placement and fewer double faults. The American can beat a player with his serve, but he can also get himself in trouble with it. The Italian normally creates no obstacles for himself.
In an extremely tight first set when both players held serve without facing a break point, the tie-break went fully Sinner's way. That is because he, like all truly elite players, tends to play the bigger moments better. Shelton is going to win a number of titles in his career, but he might never be the player Sinner is.
Jannik Sinner defeats Ben Shelton in quarterfinals on Wimbledon 2025
The Italian moves easily around the court, and he showed no issues with a troublesome right elbow he seemed to injure in his fourth-round match. He appeared to be as fit as ever and kept his tenacious defensive abilities.
When needed at the most important moments of the match, Sinner was able to return Shelton's huge serve and forehands and then go immediately into the offensive. The American's game is not, at this point, versatile enough to challenge Sinner continuously over a best-of-five match.
After taking the first-set tie-break 7-2, each player held serve until it was 4-all in the second, but again Sinner augmented his form and earned a break of Shelton to take the set 6-4. The American was playing well, but not well enough.
It might have also been weighing on Shelton that he had never come back to win from two sets to love down, not that he has had an extremely long career yet. Any doubt for a tennis player can be crippling, however.
In the third set, Sinner had three match points leading 5-4 with Shelton serving, and was able to capitalize on the third one as Shelton hit a forehand long. Each set was tight, but Sinner was never much in doubt of losing the match.
Sinner is now in the semifinals of Wimbledon for the second time. He has never made the final. Some might also question whether he deserves to still be playing. In the fourth round, he was being dominated by Grigor Dimitrov, who was up two sets to love, before the Bulgarian was injured and was forced to retire.
Sinner will next play the winner of the Novak Djokovic and Flavio Cobolli match. That match will take place on Friday. The winner of that will play the winner of the other semifinal match, which features Taylor Fritz versus Carlos Alcaraz.