Defending champion Sinner survives muscle cramp attacks against Shelton and will play final Australian Open

Jannik Sinner will battle for back-to-back Australian Open titles and a third Grand Slam title in a year when he faces Alexander Zverev on Sunday in Melbourne after the Italian vanquished Ben Shelton on Friday 7-6(2), 6-2, 6-2.

It is back-to-back Australian Open finals and also Grand Slam finals after Sinner won the US Open and amid all the turmoil that has surrounded his career in the past few months with still an impending doping appeal at CAS, he has still been producing win after win.

It is now 20 on the spin, he has won 13 consecutive both at Grand Slam level and also the Australian Open respectively albeit faces Zverev who has his number with Sinner only winning twice from their six meetings.

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It was an interesting match as Shelton let initial momentum slip. Neither player was at their best in the early going as the American flipped the script with a break to make it 6-5 and he was serving for the set. But he spurned two separate set points and Sinner turned it around to break.

He then eased through the opening tie-break in order to claim the opener 7-6 and it was a non event as such from there on until the end when there was some doubt. The first set upped Sinner's game and also deflated Shelton as the Italian claimed the second with ease 6-2 but interestingly despite the final set having the same scoreline, it also featured some doubts for Sinner.

At two sets and a double break up, he had to take a medical timeout for an injury and he perhaps would've had some doubts swirling but he emerged from the MTO to ease through from there in pretty rapid fashion dropping three points on his serve over the last two service games and breaking to love to go 5-2 up before closing it out. Zverev is a different test to Shelton but he certainly showed he could weather adversity and also produce his best.

Sinner suffers from cramps

Sinner played a flawless semifinal, but at the end of the third set physical complaints suddenly began to strike. The Italian felt a lot of pain in his thigh and was treated twice by his physio.

These complaints hardly affected his play, however, Sinner actually started to play better and better. Point after point went to the Italian and the first match point at 5-2 was a winner. In the final, he will face the world number two Zverev. The German will look for his first win at a Grand Slam tournament on Sunday.

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