Focused from the start?

Will we see a Shelton who is eager to prove a point?

It's been almost a month since Shelton played his last match! A first-round upset against Virtanen at Wimbledon. Honestly, I kind of like his decision to take some time off instead of entering the clay ATP 250s in Europe (post-Wimbledon); they don't really suit him that much anyway! While Shelton has already won three titles this year, his last Grand Slam results have not been good - and his GS results have always been his strength! His return game continues to be a huge issue, and it has proven really costly. While his clutchness, excellent serving, athleticism, and power are usually enough to win most matches, not existing on return game makes it quite difficult, since he has to win tight matches constantly with tiebreaks. Anyway, I'm much more optimistic now, returning to hardcourts.

Shelton will face a challenge straight away! Damm is having somewhat of a breakthrough year, and since I said Shelton was a bad returner, I definitely have to put Damm in the same category! His game is rather simple; he serves big and hits big... even though I have seen him sprinkle in a few drop shots here and there. He was able to make it through qualies, but struggled quite heavily against the tricky Shelbayh in his last match. In the end, he played a very good deciding-set tiebreaker, and perhaps such a gritty win could help him raise his level a bit and play "freely" as a big underdog in the first round. Shelton is definitely a better version of Damm, more athletic and also steadier from the baseline. However, lefty vs lefty battles tend not to always be so straightforward for the favorite... and if Damm can serve well, he could push it into tiebreaks where anything can happen! Shelton has really pointed out his desire to achieve more consistency, especially in the first rounds, so it will be interesting to see if he can start in the right way here...