Tennis-Shelton's need for speed proves costly against Sinner
LONDON (Reuters) -American Ben Shelton said he paid the price for trying to serve too fast after losing 7-6(2) 6-4 6-4 to Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon quarter-finals on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old left-hander cranked out some huge firepower as he tried to knock the ice-cool Sinner off his stride but in the big moments his big weapons failed him.
Top seed Sinner won seven successive points from 0-2 in the first set tiebreak, then broke Shelton's serve for the first time to capture the second set and repeated the trick as the 10th seed served to stay in the match.
"You feel consistent pressure playing a guy like him, who returns as well as him throughout the match," Shelton, who was also beaten by Sinner in this year's Australian Open semi-final and has now lost 15 successive sets to the Italian, said.
"I think possibly trying to go a little bit too big on the first serve in those moments or hitting it too hard.
"Being able to stay calm and keep my emotions the exact same and know that my normal service motion where I go after a first serve, it's going to show up at 140mph on the clock.
"It's not like when I go and hit my smooth service motion, it's going to come off 122mph. If I go from a flat serve with a smooth motion, it's going to come off 140, but chasing 147 sometimes in those moments is stupid."
Shelton did not do much wrong against world number one Sinner but said playing him was like being on fast-forward.
"His ball speed is really high. Never seen anything like it. You don't see anything like it when you're going through the draw. When you play him, it's almost like things are in two times speed," he said.
Shelton reached a career-best fourth round at last month's French Open, losing to eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz, and leaves Wimbledon with another personal best run.
But he is hungry for more.
"I know that I can play at the Grand Slams at this point. I know that I have the ability to be deep in the tournament when it's three-out-of-five sets," he said.
"I could sit here and be like, 'wow, 22 years old and I've been able to do these things and achieve these things.'
"But my mind is critical. I'm a critical thinker. I'm trying to solve problems," he said. "I know that I'm not where I want to be. That's kind of what I'm focusing on."
(Reporting by Martyn HermanEditing by Toby Davis)
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