London [UK], July 1: Fourth seed Ben Shelton crashed out of Wimbledon in the first round after "one of the toughest" losses to Otto Virtanen, but snapped back at talk of a favourable side of the draw.
Shelton squandered match point and a great opportunity for a deep run at the All England Club after he went down to world number 140 Virtanen to suffer a second consecutive early grand slam exit.
American Shelton had gone out in the second round at Roland Garros, but recovered from a slow start against qualifier Virtanen to establish an 8-5 and 9-8 advantage in the deciding tie-break only to lose 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (8-10) 6-2, 7-6 (11-9) in four hours and 21 minutes.
Shelton, who made the quarter-finals of the 2025 Championships and landed on the other side of the draw to defending champion Jannik Sinner and seven-time Wimbledon winner Novak Djokovic, said: "I'm not a dumbass. It's not something that I look at.
"I'm not looking at my path at all. It's just focusing on the first round obviously.
"If you're not playing the same day as the guy, you probably know he's not in your half of the draw. Past that I'm usually pretty locked in at these tournaments (on) who I'm playing opening match. As you can see here, anybody can come out and win.
"This is definitely one of the toughest losses of my career, coming here at Wimbledon."
Shelton's compatriot Taylor Fritz wasted little time on court and eased past Dusan Lajovic 6-3, 6-4, 6-3, which was also the case for fifth seed Alex De Minaur, who got the better of Roman Burruchaga, the son of Argentina's 1986 World Cup hero Jorge Burruchaga, in rapid fashion.
Fresh from his maiden French Open victory last month, Alexander Zverev dropped a set against Belgium's Alexander Blockx before he triumphed 6-4, 6-7 (8-10), 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (7-0) win on Centre Court.
While reached the final of all other three slams, Zverev has never gone beyond the fourth round at Wimbledon.
Corentin Moutet got himself in trouble at Queen's Club with his expletive-laden interview and received a code violation in his defeat to Marcos Giron.
At the end of the third set, the Frenchman smashed his racket on his knee and duly earned a code violation, but did then give his broken equipment to a young spectator in the crowd in Court Nine.
Jakub Mensik required five sets to get past home favourite Toby Samuel, but Matteo Arnaldi, who was seeded 32nd, lost to Quentin Halys and Lorenzo Sonego got the better of 29th seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry.
Alexander Bublik, the 10th seed, rallied back to hold off Thanasi Kokkinakis but 27th seed Ugo Humbert was outlasted by Zizou Bergs.
Source: Qatar Tribune
