Obstacle course

Shelton won’t have an easy match during this tournament, but that’s perfect for him—he loves big battles.

First round and first scare for Shelton, who was all over the place in the first set against Griekspoor before finding his game and finally rolling. Should we be worried? I'd be inclined to say no, it's a first round at home, he's highly anticipated and one of the favorites. Naturally, the arm feels heavy and he needs to find some looseness. In the end, it was a good match to make his debut, and knowing him, he needs that to feel good in his tournament.

He’ll surely raise his level and become harder and harder to beat. He’ll need to, given his draw. After Griekspoor, which you could consider a tough first-round draw, he faces Hurkacz straight away in the second round.

It’s pretty funny that they’ve never played each other, given that they’re both fairly high in the rankings and likely to meet often. We’re going to have to break this down a bit. First, it has to be said that Shelton doesn’t have a good record against big servers, which is the case with Hurkacz. However, Hurkacz doesn’t like players who can come to the net to break up his defense and avoid getting stuck in long baseline rallies, and that’s something Shelton can do! Each of them will have things in their favor in this matchup, but there’s one factor that tilts slightly toward Shelton: his ability to play his best tennis in Grand Slams. He’s got a huge track record there; he’s excellent in this format, and it’s the complete opposite for Hurkacz, who systematically disappoints. We were expecting an easy first-round win and he still managed to drop a set; I absolutely don’t trust him in this format.

On the other hand, the Pole is in good form and tricky to play, so Shelton will have to be particularly focused from the start to avoid getting dragged into another complicated match.