Ben Shelton and Madison Keys Fly the Flag for American Tennis
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January 22, 2025
Ben Shelton and Madison Keys are through to the Australian Open semi-finals.
And the surprise packages of American tennis at the so-called “Happy Slam” are certainly keeping us entertained.
We had expected Taylor Fritz and Coco Gauff to go deepest in Melbourne – but they have fallen by the wayside.
Ben Shelton, Taylor Fritz, Madison Keys and Coco Gauff will all be back in major contention at Wimbledon 2025, of course.
We can’t wait to see what the sheer strength in depth of American tennis can achieve at the greatest tournament of them all.
For now, it’s showman Shelton who is most capturing the fans’ imagination. His match against Lorenzo Sonego was a total delight.
Following one dramatic shoot-out, won by a diving Sonego, Shelton stayed at the net to shake his opponent’s hand. You don’t often see that mid-game!
And in the vital concluding tie-break, when Ben ended up sprawled out against the advertising boards, he simply turned himself over and began to do press-ups.
The crowd loved the spectacle all afternoon – and Shelton was rewarded with a thoroughly enjoyable 6-4, 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (7-4) victory.
Now Ben Shelton faces the seemingly unstoppable Jannik Sinner in the American’s first Melbourne semi-finals.
Sinner said: ‘We played some tough matches last year and he has a big serve. As a lefty he puts different rotations on the ball – so hopefully I will be ready.’
The ruthless Italian – who silenced the crowd with his straight-sets defeat of local hero Alex de Minaur – will be heavy favourite, of course.
But Shelton will do all he can to ruffle Sinner’s feathers. And he has plenty of weapons in his armoury – as Jannik admitted.
Meanwhile Madison Keys admitted to being both ‘pleased and surprised’ to be back in the Australian Open semis once more.
She really shouldn’t be too shocked. No one has won more WTA matches than Madison so far this year.
But she had to battle hard to defeat the much-loved Ukrainian, Elina Svitolina 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Now Keys takes on fearsome Pole Iga Swiatek, who raised a few eyebrows when she failed to declare a “not up” double bounce in her victory over another American, Emma Navarro.
Emma remonstrated briefly with the umpire – but Swiatek later claimed she hadn’t noticed her mistake. It was a vital moment at 2-2 in the second set – and decided the result once and for all.
Iga stifled Navarro’s comeback from that controversial moment – and won easily in the end by 6-1, 6-2.
Ben Shelton, Emma Navarro and the other Americans will be a threat to the favourites at Wimbledon 2025, though.
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