Final before its time?

We're not far from the match of the tournament if both players bring their best tennis in what promises to be a great night session.

It’s a real obstacle course for Shelton, who’s stringing together matches against formidable opponents.

The American started off a bit sluggish, but now that he’s really into his tournament, he’s stepping up to another level as he usually does. You can feel he’s super focused and just very good. He’s gaining confidence and developing his game the right way. I honestly thought he was perfect against Tsitsipas from start to finish, with no drop in concentration or level. Which is still a bit his only weakness, in my opinion. But it also has to be said that the match-up was incredibly favorable for him and, on top of that, Stefanos was a bit diminished in the early sets. It’s a great win, but tomorrow he’ll be up against a completely different kind of opponent. And this is kind of the moment where we find out whether Shelton can take that next step.

Alcaraz is operating on a completely different level, and I’m speechless when it comes to the quality of the matches he’s delivering even though he’s just coming back from injury. What he’s producing is simply phenomenal, and he also seems to be getting stronger, which shouldn’t even be possible. He just steamrolled Paul in a match he controlled from A to Z, and the American summed up well what he was up against: he feels it’s even harder than before to beat him and that he had no solutions. Maybe Shelton can lean more on his serve and really believe, because I honestly feel Paul was lacking mentally in that match, which definitely won’t be the case with Shelton, who is clearly built for this kind of battle.

Historically, Alcaraz leads 3–0, but the matches are generally tight. As I said, Shelton can rely on the quality of his serve and still scrape together a few points. But for everything else in the game, I’m a bit worried for him because Alcaraz has no weaknesses. He plays fast, he defends, he attacks, he can do everything, and he’s the best player in the world, even though he’s just come back. The match will almost entirely depend on him. And even though you can feel Shelton is in particularly good form and ambitious, I don’t think he’s the real one calling the shots in this encounter.