Popyrin’s muted Australian Open exit leaves rising star Shelton shining bright

by making the third round. If he cried upon leaving the same venue on Saturday night he did not let anybody see it, for as soon as he lost the first of two match points he could not get out of there quickly enough, offering but a cursory wave before disappearing into the tunnel.

Rightly or wrongly, Popyrin’s upset of the highly fancied American immediately rendered him the favourite against the next, less-fancied American. But Ben Shelton is a rising star in his own right, and the 20-year-old left-hander arrived with an even bigger serve than Popyrin’s and a cool-headedness that did not waver despite the whole arena supporting the other guy.

Shelton had come prepared to face Popyrin. He had seen the 23-year-old Australian “bullying people around the court” the past few weeks and resolved that to have a chance of winning he must “bring it to him”. It possibly also helped that Popyrin had already spent eight-and-a-half hours on the court over his two previous five-set wins at Melbourne Park, though his demeanour appeared more tense than tired.

Despite pushing Shelton to a break point in first game of the match, his counterpart took the opening set with little fuss, sending down second serves as fast as 206kph and his first serve topping out at 226kph. Popyrin was still serving and hitting with signature vigour, it was just that Shelton was doing the same but with added variety, epitomised in the second-set tie-breaker when, while up a mini-break at 5-4, he followed his latest earth-shaking serve with a clever, point-winning drop shot.

In the end, the deftness of touch was the difference, meaning Shelton will face his countryman and friend, JJ Wolf, in the fourth round.

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