Ben Shelton was unable to overcome world number one Jannik Sinner as he suffered a quarterfinal defeat at Wimbledon.
Shelton claimed Sinner did something he has never seen before, as he suffered a straight sets defeat to the Italian.
Despite achieving his best result at Wimbledon this year, Shelton has been told he needs to improve an area of his game in particular.
It appears that Shelton is also rueing mistakes he made during his quarterfinal match, something he admitted in his post-match press conference.
Ben Shelton admits ‘stupid’ thing he did against Jannik Sinner at Wimbledon
Sinner beat Shelton, 7-6(2) 6-4 6-4, in two hours and 21 minutes on Court No.1 at Wimbledon.
Shelton’s serve is seen as one of his big weapons, and he utilised it to hit an impressive 14 aces past Sinner.
However, it appears that he was disappointed with how he utilised this weapon sometimes and admitted he was trying to go for too much at points during the match.
“You feel consistent pressure playing a guy like him, who returns as well as him throughout the match,” Shelton said in his post-match press conference. “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.”
Ben Shelton says how he feels about his Grand Slam performances so far this year
Shelton has achieved his best results at all of the Grand Slam tournaments this year, reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open, fourth round of Roland Garros and now quarterfinals at Wimbledon.
John McEnroe believes Shelton can become a major champion, and it appears that he is still not completely satisfied with his current results.
“I am definitely not satisfied,” continued Shelton. “It would be a little bit tone deaf to say I am dissatisfied with what I was able to put together on the clay and the grass courts.
“I would say that I want to go one step deeper at the big tournaments than the year before and I have done that in every Slam this year, at Australia, French and here.
“I wouldn’t say I am satisfied but can I feel confident coming off the first three slams of the season and going into the fourth and encouraged going into the US Open? Yes, but at the same time it still stings.”
Shelton has only lost to either Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz at the Grand Slams this year, and will now have all eyes on his home major of the US Open.
The world number 10 will begin his North American hard court swing at the Washington Open, which gets underway on Monday, July 21.
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