Ben Shelton is moving on, again.
On Monday, the former Gator and Buchholz Bobcat, who moved up to No. 10 in the world rankings last Monday, rallied past Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego, 3-6, 6-1, 7-6, 7-5 in the fourth round of singles play to advance to the 2025 Wimbledon Quarterfinals.
He advanced to his fifth quarterfinal appearance this year and his fourth career major quarterfinal.
“It was difficult,” Shelton said on Court 1 following his match. “I feel like every time I play Sonego, we played at the Australian Open, we played at the French Open, and now here, and every time I need a big point he comes up with a highlight shot, and maybe the same vice versa, but it was a lot of fun.”
Shelton, who didn’t drop a set during the first three rounds, including a 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory on Saturday against Hungarian Marton Fucsovics, quickly found himself down a set on Monday.
He said “belief” was the key.
“Getting a little bit of momentum and running with it,” Shelton told ESPN analyst Pam Shriver in a postgame interview. “I think it gave me a second break in the second set. I feel like I had a little bit of dominance or hold in the match and just keep it going from there was really important for me…there were a lot of things that made that match difficult but the way that I played the big moments was why I came out on top.”
The 22-year-old had six break-point opportunities, the same number as Sonego, but he capitalized twice as much.
“It’s huge,” Shelton said. “Against the best players those chances don’t come around more than a couple of times, so for me I always try to get the break on the first break point and do my best to be aggressive in those moments, but confident, so patiently aggressive. That’s the way I played my break points today and that’s how I was able to capitalize on it.”
According to ESPN, Shelton became just the fourth Black American man to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals in the Open Era, joining Arthur Ashe, MaliVai Washington and Christopher Eubanks.
There are just three Americans remaining at Wimbledon as Shelton joins No. 5 seed Taylor Fritz, who will play his men’s quarterfinal vs. Russian No. 17 seed Karen Khachanov, and No. 13 seed Amanda Anisimova, who will face Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Tuesday in the ladies’ quarterfinal.
Shelton and Fritz are hoping to become the first American male to win a singles title at Wimbledon since Pete Sampras in 2000. The last female American to win was Serena Williams in 2016.
Shelton returns to the grass court on Wednesday and will face the winner of No. 1 seed Jannik Sinner and No. 19 Grigor Dimitrov.
He is 1-5 all-time against Sinner and 0-1 vs. Dimitrov.
As the No. 14 seed at Wimbledon last year, Shelton lost to Sinner, the defending champion, in the semifinals in three sets.
“I know him (Sinner) well,” Shelton said. “I’ve played him a lot of times. I played him in Australia, I played him here, I’ve played him on hard courts, pretty much everywhere…he’s a machine. He’s been No. 1 in the world for as long as he has for a reason and won the Slams he has won for a reason. You’ve got to play well to compete with him. I’m excited for the challenge. I dream about these types of matchups, big stage, late at Grand Slams, and I couldn’t be more excited to go after him.”
But if Dimitrov pulls the upset?
“We know the level that Grigor can play,” Shelton said. “His aggressive tennis, the way he can take the rack(et) out of your hands with a serve on the forehand and mix up the pace and speed on the backhand with the slice. He plays some beautiful tennis. I don’t want to disrespect him, but Roger-esque (Federer). I don’t want to compare him to anyone else but the way that he plays is really good for these grass courts at Wimbledon, so he’s a tough out no matter what.”