{"id":727234,"date":"2026-01-28T22:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T22:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/727234\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T22:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T22:16:12","slug":"jannik-sinner-sweeps-aside-ben-shelton-faces-djokovic-in-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/727234\/","title":{"rendered":"Jannik Sinner sweeps aside Ben Shelton, faces Djokovic in semis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jannik Sinner<\/a> was all business in a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over eighth-seeded Ben Shelton<\/a> to extend his winning streak to 19 at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n

That’s the kind of run that only his semifinal opponent, Novak Djokovic<\/a>, has topped at the Australian Open.<\/p>\n

After the Djokovic benefited from Lorenzo Musetti<\/a>‘s untimely injury<\/a> when up two sets to love. Sinner conceded he was lucky to still be in the tournament too, after struggling with cramps and staggering in his third-round match until the roof was closed and he went back on court reinvigorated.<\/p>\n

Sinner’s third-round drama now seems like a distant memory after the two-time defending champion brushed aside the big-serving Shelton. It was his third win against the American in the past five Slams.<\/p>\n

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“It’s very tough to play against Ben,” Sinner said. “Huge serve and I feel like he’s improving so much year after year. Very happy about today’s performance. I felt like I returned great today.”<\/p>\n

Now, for the third time in the past four majors, he finds Djokovic waiting in the semifinals. Sinner has a 6-4 lead in his career against Djokovic, winning the past five matches. That sequence includes the semifinals at the 2024 Australian Open and at Roland Garros and Wimbledon last year.<\/p>\n

On facing Djokovic, the 24-year-old said: “These are moments why you practice, you wake up in the morning and you look forward to play hopefully a good match. We are still lucky to have Novak here playing incredible tennis with his age. Hopefully it’s going to be a great battle.”<\/p>\n

Sinner’s strengths will come as no surprise to Djokovic, who has not won a set against the Italian player since their meeting two years ago in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

They were on full display against Shelton — another man who must be sick of the sight of Sinner — in the night match at Rod Laver Arena. After winning their first clash in the fall of 2023, Shelton has lost all nine meetings since, failing to win a set in four Grand Slam encounters.<\/p>\n

The problem for Shelton is that his main weapon — a serve that can reach speeds of 150 mph — plays to arguably Sinner’s biggest strength in his extraordinary return.<\/p>\n

Shelton sent down a serve of 144 mph, the fastest of the tournament, in his opening service game but was under pressure throughout a first set in which Sinner hit 18 winners and made only four unforced errors.<\/p>\n

Sinner has been trying to add more variety to his game, and he pulled a trick out of rival Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>‘s book by sliding a winner around the net post in the fourth game, going on to break Shelton for the first time.<\/p>\n

He could not quite maintain the same level over the next two sets, but Sinner’s dominance was never in question and a fourth consecutive Slam final against Alcaraz is now looming large.<\/p>\n

The top four seeds have reached the final four in the men’s draw, with No. 1 Alcaraz and No. 3 Alexander Zverev<\/a> set to meet in the other semifinal.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press and PA contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jannik Sinner was all business in a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over eighth-seeded Ben Shelton to extend his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-727234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115975040760160837","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}