| WIMBLEDON, England — Hello from across the pond! I spent part of my Wednesday watching Ben Shelton in the Wimbledon quarterfinals. Shelton, who is one of a few rising Americans in men’s tennis alongside Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul and Wimbledon semifinalist Taylor Fritz, has all the makings of a star. He’s personable, thoughtful, explosive on court thanks to one heck of a lefty serve and is one half of a sports power couple (he’s dating soccer star Trinity Rodman.) He’s having a career year at the Grand Slams, having reached the semifinals in Australia, the fourth round at the French Open and the quarterfinals here. The only problem? He keeps losing to Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. That’s not exactly bad news for Shelton. Sinner took him out in Australia and at Wimbledon, and it’s difficult to be too dejected by losing to the world No. 1. Same thing goes for losing to Alcaraz, a five-time Grand Slam champion, on his best surface in Paris. But his loss Wednesday did make me wonder how much the gap between Sinner and Alcaraz and the rest of their contemporaries is widening. There were arguably two full generations of players who never won a Grand Slam because of the stranglehold Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic had on the sport. It’s so early in Sinner and Alcaraz’s careers — they’re 23 and 22, respectively — but are we barreling toward a repeat? Sinner’s signature is his robotic consistency. He places unrelenting pressure on his opponents. “His ball speed is really high. Never seen anything like it,” Shelton said of facing Sinner. “When you play him, it’s almost like things are in 2x speed.” Another element of Sinner’s dominance is that the Italian leaves so maddeningly few opportunities for his opponents to gain an edge that it can feel like they must go for broke. Shelton’s first serve percentage dropped in part because he started going for serves that were too big, he said, trying to be perfect rather than great. I think it’s too early to say that Alcaraz, who’s aiming to become just the fourth man in the Open era to win three consecutive Wimbledon championships, and Sinner are going to just divvy up the next 25 Grand Slam titles and leave their contemporaries in the dust. Besides the fact that Djokovic may well have a couple titles left in him — he’ll go against Sinner in the second of Friday’s semifinals — there are other legitimate contenders who shouldn’t be counted out. Alcaraz will face Fritz, a 27-year-old Californian who has won five of his 10 career titles on grass, is playing some of his best tennis and has big match experience after having made it to the final of the U.S. Open last year (where he lost to … Sinner). Fritz said this week that nothing will match up to the pressure he felt last year as an American making a deep run in New York. Well, now he has a chance to make a dent in the dominance of the new “big two.” Fritz isn’t the only American still alive at Wimbledon — 23-year-old Amanda Anisimova beat No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in a tight semifinal Thursday that burned for 2 hours, 36 minutes. Anisimova, who first reached a Grand Slam semifinal as a 17-year-old at the French Open and took an eight-month mental health break in 2023, outhit Sabalenka — which is no easy feat. She’ll face five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek, who beat Belinda Bencic 6-2, 6-0 in the second semifinal. Saturday is the first Wimbledon final for both players. | 
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