Jannik Sinner's Ball

[Georgepeppard007]

Listen at the 11:40 minute mark in the press conference on Shelton talking about Sinner's ball.

Zverev is 6 foot 6 inches tall. He will not be bothered by Sinner's ball.

 

[ghostofMecir]

Listen at the 11:40 minute mark in the press conference on Shelton talking about Sinner's ball.

Zverev is 6 foot 6 inches tall. He will not be bothered by Sinner's ball.

Shelton is also tall.

 

[Georgepeppard007]

Shelton is also tall.

Shelton also said he wasn't bothered by Sinner's high ball.

You do have a point since he still lost.

 

[Robert F]

I agree with Roddick that he needed to hit more bombs.
But I also wondered if Shelton wasn't hitting enough inside/out forehands. He got caught hitting a lot of backhands (which he was often able to keep neutral), but I wonder if he could've stepped around more of them--obviously tough against Sinner's ball.

Other times when Shelton had FHs, the look very heavy but they almost seem to sit up (on the pro level), and I wonder if Sinner was comfortable hitting those balls. Also the way he hooks the ball on his forehand when going inside out seems to hook into the court instead of away from the court, taking away some of the offense.

1st set was pretty good.
I think he has shown he can compete with these guys he just needs to be able to bring it all day long.

 

[Serve&Bash]

That was pretty funny. Reporter asks Ben if he thinks his game matches up well against Sinner and Ben agrees (LOL it doesn't). He them rambles about how he likes balls that check up with spin like Sinner's shots do.The statement is bizarre after the SF. Sinner's advantage from the baseline was so vast that Shelton looked foolish at times rallying with him; Shelton couldn't even get into the slot position to exchange groundies and shanked shots out or right into the net.

As for Zverev, I think his backhand is so good that he can handle anything Sinner throws at him there. I think Zverev is probably the only guy on tour who can rally CC backhand to backhand with Sinner and win most of the exchanges. The problem is that Zverev hits those junky topspin forehands that Sinner can tee off on and in that case Zverev will absolutely be bothered by Sinner's ball no matter how tall he is.

 

[Tennfan123]

Shelton was way too happy with being in the semis and losing to the doper.

 

[Subway Tennis]

I agree with Roddick that he needed to hit more bombs.
But I also wondered if Shelton wasn't hitting enough inside/out forehands. He got caught hitting a lot of backhands (which he was often able to keep neutral), but I wonder if he could've stepped around more of them--obviously tough against Sinner's ball.

Other times when Shelton had FHs, the look very heavy but they almost seem to sit up (on the pro level), and I wonder if Sinner was comfortable hitting those balls. Also the way he hooks the ball on his forehand when going inside out seems to hook into the court instead of away from the court, taking away some of the offense.

1st set was pretty good.
I think he has shown he can compete with these guys he just needs to be able to bring it all day long.

I’d love to see Shelton work on his serving accuracy. It would have helped a lot last night. He’d be unplayable with slightly more aggressive placement and I definitely think it’s something he is capable of.

 

[BenBen]

To Shelton’s credit, his footwork has improved by leaps and bounds the last couple years. Also, I enjoyed his reserved comportment in the Sinner match, more of that please.

 

[BallisticMissileFonseca]

Shelton just needs to keep improving his footwork.

 

[Oleksandr.Usyk]

Wrong headline. Sinner has no balls or even a ball, steroids shrinked him like bodybuilders.

Shelton got Sinner out of the rhytmh easily. He just needs to be more stable and consistent.

 

[BenBen]

Sinner’s consistency, including aggressive accuracy, weight of shot, and endurance went to another level in 2024. Even the USO23 was not close to his level in 24. It’s intriguing because not only did his fitness improve, he changed his tactics and became far more aggressive. I forget his ROS, greatly improved, it’s wild.

 

[Born_to_slice]

Closterballs of steel.

 

[Winner Sinner]

Sinner's ball doesn't put him in difficulty, yet he has lost all 12 of the last sets played against the Italian tennis player. In the meantime, since that victory of Shelton in Shanghai 2023, players like Jarry, Schoolkate, McDonald, Safiullin, Etcheverry, Griekspoor, Marozsan, Monfils, Hoffmann, etc. have taken a set away from Sinner.

 

[Aabye5]

I agree with Roddick that he needed to hit more bombs.
But I also wondered if Shelton wasn't hitting enough inside/out forehands. He got caught hitting a lot of backhands (which he was often able to keep neutral), but I wonder if he could've stepped around more of them--obviously tough against Sinner's ball.

Other times when Shelton had FHs, the look very heavy but they almost seem to sit up (on the pro level), and I wonder if Sinner was comfortable hitting those balls. Also the way he hooks the ball on his forehand when going inside out seems to hook into the court instead of away from the court, taking away some of the offense.

1st set was pretty good.
I think he has shown he can compete with these guys he just needs to be able to bring it all day long.

First set, he defended his backhand very well, but I'm not convinced the slice does enough damage against Sinner, it's more effective against someone like Nole. (It does keep it neutral, as you point out, but that's not usually enough).

Do you think he gave up after the first set? I couldn't quite tell.

 

[Aabye5]

That was pretty funny. Reporter asks Ben if he thinks his game matches up well against Sinner and Ben agrees (LOL it doesn't). He them rambles about how he likes balls that check up with spin like Sinner's shots do.The statement is bizarre after the SF. Sinner's advantage from the baseline was so vast that Shelton looked foolish at times rallying with him; Shelton couldn't even get into the slot position to exchange groundies and shanked shots out or right into the net.

As for Zverev, I think his backhand is so good that he can handle anything Sinner throws at him there. I think Zverev is probably the only guy on tour who can rally CC backhand to backhand with Sinner and win most of the exchanges. The problem is that Zverev hits those junky topspin forehands that Sinner can tee off on and in that case Zverev will absolutely be bothered by Sinner's ball no matter how tall he is.

But how can you look at that first set and not see that Shelton can challenge Sinner?

Sinner is on a roll, and no one is getting close to him. To say, "You lost" is not a great argument. Everybody is losing right now.

 

[MeatTornado]

Zverev may not be made uncomfortable by Sinner's average rally ball, but that doesn't mean he has any sort of advantage in the rallies either. We used to say the same thing about his matches with Nadal. That lefty topspin jumped right into Zverev's strike zone, but it rarely mattered because Zverev still lacks the guts to do anything with it. Just look at how passive he was against a 37 year old Djokovic the other day.

I fully expect Sinner to be the one taking the initiative in these rallies and moving Zverev around from corner to corner while Zed mostly hits back up the middle.

 

[Holic]

Zverev will most likely lose as he is a mental midget compared to Sinner. He will choke 100%.

 

[Rafa4LifeEver]

Left one or right one?

 

[LOBALOT]

Z isn't beating the doper. He is a mental midget the doper has demonstrated the advantage gained by cheating. This is just like the Bonds era in baseball and all the doper records need to be pushed to the side and ignored.

 

[Rovesciarete]

Good question and an insightful answer by Ben. Strange that Janni’s dominance ratio is especially high against him. Then again, he only faced in the last two years…

However height might be indeed helpful against him, Zverev is the only player apart from Djokovic that has a positive dominance ratio against Sinner.

Meddy is very close, as is Tsitsipas. I deselected players like Rublev, de Minaur or Ruusovori…

Mtgs​	Opponent​	Win%​	MS​	DR​	A%​	DF%​	1stIn​	1st%​	2nd%​	SPW​	RPW​
15​	Daniil Medvedev [RUS]	53.3%​	15​	1.02​	7.3%​	1.3%​	61.3%​	72.9%​	52.6%​	65.1%​	35.6%​
11​	Carlos Alcaraz [ESP]	36.4%​	11​	1.00​	4.3%​	4.1%​	57.3%​	68.3%​	51.5%​	61.1%​	39.0%​
9​	Stefanos Tsitsipas [GRE]	33.3%​	9​	1.06​	5.2%​	2.2%​	63.4%​	72.6%​	52.5%​	65.2%​	36.8%​
8​	Novak Djokovic [SRB]	50.0%​	8​	0.88​	8.9%​	2.9%​	60.2%​	70.9%​	54.1%​	64.2%​	31.6%​
6​	Ben Shelton [USA]	83.3%​	6​	1.40​	8.6%​	0.6%​	69.5%​	77.4%​	62.3%​	72.8%​	38.2%​
6​	Alexander Zverev [GER]	33.3%​	6​	0.96​	5.2%​	3.5%​	57.6%​	70.2%​	50.7%​	61.9%​	36.5%​

 

[Robert F]

First set, he defended his backhand very well, but I'm not convinced the slice does enough damage against Sinner, it's more effective against someone like Nole. (It does keep it neutral, as you point out, but that's not usually enough).

Do you think he gave up after the first set? I couldn't quite tell.

I don't think he gave up after the fist set. Sinner just didn't back down.

I think Shelton felt he played a really good set and couldn't win and was trying to figure out a different way to beat him, when in fact he should have stuck with his 1st set game plan but just be more aggressive with.

 

[Aabye5]

I don't think he gave up after the fist set. Sinner just didn't back down.

I think Shelton felt he played a really good set and couldn't win and was trying to figure out a different way to beat him, when in fact he should have stuck with his 1st set game plan but just be more aggressive with.

Yes, that would have at least forced the issue. That was the first time in a while that Sinner wasn't in absolute control of a match.