On January 22, Beijing time, the 2025 Australian Open tennis tournament will start its 11th match day. In the men's singles quarterfinals, No. 21 seed Shelton defeated Italy's Sonego 6-4/7-5/4-6/7-6(4) to reach the semifinals of the Australian Open men's singles for the first time in his career.

Sheldon and Sonego have played each other twice before, and it is worth mentioning that Shelton's first career ATP Masters win was against Sonego in the first round of the 2022 Cincinnati Masters. In this match, Shelton firmly controlled the pace of the match in the first two sets, taking two sets in a row 6-4, 7-5 with one more break each. In the third set, Sonego found an opportunity at the end of the set and broke at 0-40 to pull one back at 6-4. In the fourth set, the two sides battled all the way to a tie-break, and Sheldon won 7-4 in the tie-break.

It was Shelton's first career run to the semi-finals of the Australian Open, and his second Grand Slam semi-final since the 2023 US Open, where he faced the winner between defending champion Sinner and homegrown favourite De Minaur in the semi-finals.

(Text and editor: Dato)