Ben Shelton looks to transfer his "good formula" at Wimbledon into elite win over Jannik Sinner

“Business as usual.” That’s what Ben Shelton has come to think of making the second week at a Grand Slam. The numbers back him up: In the 11 majors he’s played in his still-young career, he’s made the fourth round or better six times. If the 22-year-old Georgia native’s nickname isn’t already Big Stage Ben, it seems like a lock that it will be at some point.

“When I get to the big tournaments, I’m more confident about getting in the second week and having deep runs because I’ve done it a lot,” he says. “It’s the tournaments that I play the best in, and the format that I enjoy the most.”

“I’m getting into the fourth round, but not feeling like I arrived somewhere.”

His last two rounds at Wimbledon have shown just how comfortable he can be at the top of the tennis mountaintop. Both matches have been played on Court 1, the second-largest arena. Both have featured full houses and a buzzing crowd that largely favored him. Both times he fed off that energy and showed a knack for managing his way through a best-of-five-set match. In that extended format, you know there will be peaks and valleys, and have to be able to conserve your energy and go for the kill at the right time.

“At the Slams, it’s a long match,” Shelton says. “You’re out there for a long time. You have to be able to make adjustments. The other guy's going to make adjustments. You have to get to a point where you can adjust on the fly if the other guy starts doing something well.”

Like his countryman Frances Tiafoe, Shelton plays an extroverted game that runs on emotion and momentum—“I’m not a mellow person,” he says. It can take time for both of them to work themselves into the flow of a match. In that way, they’re well-suited to best-of-five, which gives you more time loosen up and is more forgiving of a slow start.

Shelton had one of those against Lorenzo Sonego on Monday, losing the first set 6-3, But he turned that around right away, and freight-trained his way through the second set 6-1. In the crucial moment of the match, the third-set tiebreaker, Shelton upped his intensity and celebrated more loudly, and his game followed. He hit a good backhand pass, a diving stab volley winner, a topspin lob winner, and a return winner to run away with it 7-1. During that stretch, Shelton moved to center stage, and Sonego was pushed into the wings.

“The game slows down and gets a lot simpler when I’m serving a high first-serve percentage, I’m hitting my spots, and I’m putting every return in play,” Shelton says.

Shelton’s return in particular has been a reason for his rise into the Top 10. He won more than half of Sonego’s second-serve points, often with his heavy-topspin forehand.

“I want to be an elite returner,” he says. “I’m on my way. I’m certainly not there yet, but I’m much better than I was when I started out on tour.”

Shelton says he plays better at tournaments where he can be around a lot of his family. Wimbledon, where players rent houses, is one of them. Here that includes his mother, father, sister, and girlfriend, Trinity Rodman.

“A lot of times that I’m at tournaments, I’m enjoying the group of people that I have there with me, enjoying the off-court moments as well as the on-court,” he says. “Those tend to be the places I play the best. I have a good formula here.”

Can that formula take him farther? His next opponent will be top seed Jannik Sinner. On paper, that’s not good news. Sinner is 5-1 against Shelton, and has won 12 straight sets. Sinner beat him in the semifinals at the Australian Open this year, and the fourth round at Wimbledon last year. Five of those sets have gone to tiebreakers, but Shelton hasn’t won any of them.

“Don’t really need to say anything there,” Shelton said when he was asked about the Italian. “The guy’s a machine.”

But is the machine as well-oiled as it usually is? Sinner fell in the first game of his round of 16 match with Grigor Dimitrov and landed on his elbow. He felt pain in his arm the rest of the way, and is fortunate to be in the tournament. Dimitrov led two sets to love before a pec injury, sadly, forced him to retire.

Sinner says he’ll have an MRI on his elbow on Tuesday.

“Was quite an unfortunate fall,” he said. “Checked the videos a little bit, and it didn’t seem [to be a] tough one, but I still felt it quite a lot, especially serve and forehand. So let’s see. Tomorrow we’re going to check to see how it is, and then we see.”

For two sets, Dimitrov had success mixing slice and topspin, approaching with his backhand, and moving Sinner side to side with his forehand. The grass seemed to give Dimitrov more of a chance to use his all-court skills than he would on hard courts.

That should be a chance for Shelton can take as well. Beating the No. 1 player in the world, and making his first Wimbledon semifinal: That wouldn’t just be business as usual, would it?