Jannik Sinner breezed into the Wimbledon quarter-finals after easing past Ben Shelton in straight sets on Sunday. (More Tennis News)
The world number one produced arguably his best performance at the grass-court major this year, cruising to a 6-2 6-4 7-6 (11-9) victory on a jam-packed No.1 Court.
Sinner did not have to wait long for his first break against America's Shelton, winning on his opponent's serve to go 3-2 up and then repeating the trick to snatch a 5-2 lead before sealing the first set.
The 22-year-old needed just 29 minutes for that opening-set triumph against the 14th seed, who again struggled to hold his serve in the next set as Sinner reeled off seven games without response.
Shelton eventually ended that imperious Sinner streak by triumphing on his own serve, though the Italian remained perfect with the ball in hand to move within one set of victory.
Sinner lost the first three games of the third set, however, after an early Shelton break, only for the top seed to battle back in his usual fighting fashion.
Having squandered a set-point opportunity, Shelton collapsed to tee up a chaotic tie-break, where both players relinquished multiple chances during an eye-catching duel.
Shelton failed to take any of his three set-point chances, with Sinner also not grasping a match-point opening, though the latter eventually triumphed at the second time of asking.
Sinner's reward will be a last-eight meeting with world number five Daniil Medvedev.
Data Debrief: Super Sinner flying
Since 2000, Sinner is only the fourth player to win 42 or more of their opening 45 ATP matches of a season, along with Roger Federer (2005-06), Novak Djokovic (2011, 2015-16) and Rafael Nadal (2013, 2018).
He is also the fifth male aged under 23 in the past four decades to reach three consecutive quarter-finals at Wimbledon, along with Boris Becker (1988-90), Pete Sampras (1992-94), Andy Roddick (2003-05) and Nadal (2006-08).
The world number one is yet to lose any of his three round-of-16 clashes in SW19, reaching the last eight in 2022, the semi-finals a year later and recording this triumph on Sunday.
