Pick of the Day: Ben Shelton vs. Jannik Sinner, Shanghai

On Tuesday at the Rolex Shanghai Masters, Ben Shelton takes on Jannik Sinner in the round of 16. Shelton is coming off a hard-fought win over Roman Safiullin, who was fresh off a straight-set win over Alexander Zverev. But the American showed a lot of poise in a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 win. Now, he takes on the red-hot Italian, who just won the China Open last week. And while this is a tough match-up for Shelton, I do think he’ll make things interesting here.

Sinner is in a deceptively difficult spot. He’s coming off the incredible high of winning his third title of the year, and he did so while earning victories over Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev. It was a tremendous week for the Italian, but it’s also hard to back those runs up. We have already seen a little of that this week, with Sinner struggling a bit in victories over Marcos Giron and Sebastian Baez. Whether mentally or physically, Sinner has experiences such issues in the later stages of many tournaments, and it isn’t that crazy to compare the setup of a major to that of back-to-back regular events. He has been playing every day for two weeks, so fatigue could factor in at some point.

Against Shelton, Sinner can’t afford to have any sort of dip in quality. Shelton is improving at a rapid pace and we’re seeing him beginning to play smarter tennis. Once he figures out how to do that on a consistent basis, he’s going to make a massive leap as a player. In terms of on-court weapons, he has them all, and the energetic American is going to come out and fire away immediately. I think that might get to Sinner, especially if he’s slow out the gates.

Another thing to like about Shelton here is that he’s one of the best servers in the world. That gives him a very high floor in matches, as he can easily force a tiebreaker or two. And if he does that, I like his chances of winning at least a set. I also wouldn’t be shocked if Sinner plays a loose service game or two. That’s still an area that he needs to improve moving forward, which is why we haven’t see him break through for a Grand Slam yet.

With all of that in mind, I like Shelton’s chances of winning a set in this match, and you barely have to lay any juice to play it.

Bet: Shelton +1.5 Sets (-105)