Ben Shelton gets a lot of attention for his devastating serve. On Monday, he showed why he’s been putting all of his attention onto his returns.
His fourth-round match against Lorenzo Sonego took a major turn in his favor in the third-set tiebreak when Sonego, who kept coming up with 130mph serves all afternoon, fired a 129mph bullet at Shelton’s forehand as he tried to keep the set alive. Shelton reared back and cranked a forehand down the line that hit the baseline. Sonego didn’t even have time to make a move for it.
Eleven games later, with Sonego serving to stay in the match, Shelton made sure that didn’t happen, with two deep forehand blocks that he would have struggled to get his racket on a year ago.
Shelton said after the 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(1), 7-5 win put him in his first Wimbledon quarterfinal, where he lost to Jannik Sinner:
💬 “I want to be an elite returner. I’m certainly not there yet, but I’m much better than I was when I started out on tour.”
A quality serve is indeed a really good thing to have at Wimbledon, but the ability to return those serves is what separates the good from the great.
GO FURTHER
In Wimbledon’s tennis paradise, serve should be king but the return reigns
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