2 hours ago
2
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Out come our players; the roof will be opened.
I’m afraid we know the answer to this one.
It’s hard to argue with any of this.
Tennis is hard – a lot of repetitive practising, a lot of travel, a lot of pressure. We should be making it nice for players, not invasive.
Earlier today:
Regular readers will know we called this one. Rybakina might just have hit a new level the last few months – I can’t wait to see her against Pegula in tomorrow’s semi.
Least said.
Shelton reckons his forehand return, net play and variety from the back is much improved from last term, and he’s coming to attack. The question, I think, will be the consistency; if he serves – and volleys, and rallies – really well, he can throw hands on return. Like Wawrinka in the grand slam finals he won against Djokovic and Nadal, going for low-percentage shorts and making them, he needs short rallies and big shots. He doesn’t have Stan’s precision, but he fancies the task and has convinced himself to believe, which makes him dangerous.
Preamble
G’day and welcome to the Australian Open 2026 – day 11!
This time yesterday we watched Alex de Minaur play brilliantly for a set a bit, as well as he can play, while knowing quietly to ourselves that there was still absolutely no way he could play well enough to beat Carlos Alcaraz. And you know what? the Demon knew it quietly to himself too.
Ben Shelton, though, is a different kettle of charisma, a bristling ball of lefty power and creativity who believes that, with hard work, the world can be his. And yet it will not have escaped his attention that Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, his opponent this evening, have contested the last three grand slam finals and the ATP Finals final too, with no signs whatsoever that their dominance is under threat.
Shelton actually beat Sinner the first time the two met, on a hard court in 2023, but has lost all eight matches since without winning a set and, in the semi-finals of last year’s one of these, he was dismissed 6, 2 and 2. He’s got a problem here.
Sinner, though, seemed to tire in his last match against Luciano Darderi and struggled with cramp in the one before against Elliot Spizzirri, only to be saved by a heat break; for brief, fleeing moments, he’s looked almost pregnable.
But there is no one better at doing the necessary and no one whose bottom level is as stratospheric – the aspect of elite sport which marks out the greats. It will take something monstrous even to trouble him here, but Shelton has a slight chance – in the context, not a criticism but a rare accolade, which says everything about the task that awaits him.
Let’s go!
