he got “lucky” when Lorenzo Musetti withdrew from their match due to injury while leading by two sets to love<\/a>.<\/p>\nSinner broke Shelton\u2019s serve once in each set and also saved all four break points he faced in another impressive showing.<\/p>\n
TNT Sports expert Tim Henman says Sinner\u2019s all-round game makes him so tough to beat.<\/p>\n
“Although Shelton tried a few different things, mixing up his serve and trying to finish up a few points at the net, time and time again Sinner comes up with the answers,” said Henman.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s why he is so difficult for everybody to beat on a hard court.<\/p>\n
“Sinner is serving incredibly well and then on the return of serve, Shelton has one of the best serves out there, but Sinner is in most service games and putting the pressure on. Then on both wings he is devastating.”<\/p>\n
Shelton had dropped just one set on his way to reaching the quarter-finals for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n
He sent down a serve of 144 mph, the fastest of the tournament, against Sinner, but crucially couldn\u2019t take any of the break-point chances that came his way.<\/p>\n
![\"picture\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-a0236ddd-5d01-42f2-b4ad-d1865f878149-85-2560-1440.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
‘Oh what a get!’ – Sinner with unbelievable speed to chase down drop shot<\/p>\n
Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n
“He has to play some of the best tennis of his life to win the baseline exchanges, and unfortunately for him when he had some second serve returns, he didn\u2019t make his opponent play,” said Henman.<\/p>\n
“But his game is moving in the right direction. He has reached another Grand Slam quarter-final, and he will go away and look at where he can improve to have an impact against Sinner.<\/p>\n
“We know that Sinner is so tough, but when you have a serve like Shelton and you haven\u2019t won a set in the last 22, he will want to put that straight next time they meet.”<\/p>\n
Sinner, who faces Djokovic in the semi-finals on Friday, said Shelton has improved since they last met and expects him to have a “great season”.<\/p>\n
The Italian said: “He’s improving every time I play, because he’s serving better, changing a lot the serve, the backhand has improved, as we saw today. He’s trying to be very, very aggressive.<\/p>\n
![\"picture\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-fcdbf550-4120-4674-ae54-31552a358581-85-2560-1440.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Sinner, Musetti and Pegula star in best shots from Day 11 of Australian Open<\/p>\n
Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n
“There are times where he changes a bit more and then times where he changes a bit less, but it’s also how you feel in that day. You cannot just close your eyes and just go for it.<\/p>\n
“I think we are going to see a great season for him this year. Now it’s also for him, the experiences he made last year, it’s a big package also for him. <\/p>\n
“He handles certain situations, you see he changed a bit the mentality, and he’s very eager to improve as a player. He puts a lot of work in. He has a great team behind him.<\/p>\n
“I think he’s going to just improve, and he’s going to be every time more and more dangerous.”<\/p>\n
The other men\u2019s semi-final sees world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz take on third seed Alexander Zverev.<\/p>\n
– – –<\/p>\n
Stream every match of the 2026 Australian Open live and on-demand on discovery+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Highlights: Sensational Sinner beats Shelton to line up Djokovic semi-final Video credit: TNT Sports Jamie Murray says Jannik…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[148728,101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-396414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-australian-open-mens-singles-2026","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n