Ben Shelton was a young tennis player traveling abroad for the first time when he made this journey last year.
Shelton had only been a professional for six months, therefore he was somewhat unknown on the circuit shortly after graduating from college. But things were set to change quickly since he had a deadly serve and youthful recklessness.
Shelton tells CNN Sport, “I feel like it went from nobody knowing me to a lot of people knowing me kind of overnight.” “It felt incredibly fast.”
Proceed ahead of time After a year, the twenty-one-year-old American is in Australia getting ready for his second grand slam at Melbourne Park.
Shelton has had great success so far in his young career. He advanced to the semifinals of the Australian Open the previous year and then faced Novak Djokovic in a tense semifinal at the US Open. He won his first ATP Tour championship in Japan a few weeks later.
Thus, it seems sense that Shelton will have high expectations going into his second full season of competitive tennis.
Tennis coach and commentator Brad Gilbert recently said to CNN, “He could cut his ranking in half, and I think he’s going to be the first American [man] potentially to win a slam since Andy Roddick.”
Shelton is the most recent American hoping to break the 20-year streak of US Open winners that Roddick started. With fellow countrymen Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, and Frances Tiafoe in the top 20, he is presently ranked 16th in the world.
Shelton, meanwhile, remains vague about what he hopes to accomplish this coming year.
“It seems like whoever says something in the media will always say, ‘Oh, you shot too high, or you shot too low,'” he continues.
Therefore, I’m going to keep my team and me apart from my result-based goals. I haven’t set out to do anything in particular yet. I don’t think I should limit my potential or what I can do. I simply want to go step by step and see where I wind up at the end of the year.
Shelton has had an unusual career path thus far. Up until the age of 12 or 13, football was his main love. Despite coming from a family of great tennis players—Shelton’s mom was a brilliant junior, and his dad and uncle were pros—he didn’t feel pressured to pick up the sport.
Shelton wasn’t persuaded to start playing tennis more seriously and advance through the junior ranks until he saw his sister travel to competitions across the nation.
Shelton chose to spend his formative years closer to home, even though the sport loves to honor juvenile champions—Carlos Alcaraz, Coco Gauff, and Emma Raducanu, for example. His father was the coach at the University of Florida, where he attended, and he went on to win the NCAA singles championship in 2022.
“I don’t think my path is perfect, but it worked for me,” Shelton continues. There’s not one path for everybody.” “At twenty-one, I feel quite young right now. It’s not like I’ve been here that long. I don’t feel at all exhausted.
With the scheduling and travel involved, tennis can be an exhausting sport, so I’m happy to have started a little later than others. I don’t think I’ve traveled too far in my lifetime.
Shelton is strong and athletic on the court. The University of Florida coach Scott Perelman describes the six-foot-four left-hander’s serve as “a rocket shooting up off the ground,” making it his most potent weapon.
Shelton came within three miles per hour of breaking Roddick’s tournament record when he smashed two serves at 149 mph in his fourth-round encounter at the US Open last year.
The native of Georgia, nevertheless, feels that he is a far more experienced player coming into the Australian Open than he was the previous season and does not wish to be viewed as a one-dimensional, serve-smashing robot.
“I feel like I’ve come a long way in a year,” he remarks. “From the baseline, I’m considerably more reliable. Additionally, I believe that I feel more at ease taking a break and approaching the net.
However, I think my mobility is the most important aspect. I believe that when I’m going hard side to side, forward, and backward, I’m a lot better player and mover than when I’m in corners.
Shelton has been tutored by his father, Bryan, since June last year. The younger Shelton has so far been enjoying their player-coach connection, and even at the age of 19, the former Georgia Tech and Florida coach claimed he could tell how his son was “a different animal” than he was during his playing days.
“There’s no other person in the world who knows me better, what makes me tick, the things that I’m good at, the things I need to improve on,” he adds.
Both of them will be aiming to surpass Shelton’s semifinal performance at the US Open last year, where he was as well-known for his now-iconic hanging-up-the-phone celebration as he was for his audacious play, in the Australian Open, which gets underway on Sunday.
Shelton said at the time that he uses the dramatic slamming down of the receiver to indicate that he is “dialed in.” In the end, even Djokovic mimicked it, whether he meant to or not.
Shelton had an incredibly successful first year as a professional, which was capped off with the US Open and his maiden championship in Tokyo. Success also brought marketability.
The Swiss sportswear firm On revealed in March that Shelton had inked a sponsorship arrangement, marking the brand’s entry into the tennis scene. At now, the top player who wears On apparel is Iga Świątek, who is ranked first in the world for women.
In addition to his usual press duties during tournaments, Shelton had a flurry of picture sessions and interviews as a result of the sponsorship agreement. He says that throughout the past 12 months, living in the public eye has been a novel experience for him.
Shelton adds, “I’m trying to get used to feeling like everyone is staring at me.” “That’s an additional aspect of being a professional athlete that I didn’t give much thought to before turning pro.”
For one of the most fascinating players in men’s tennis, the last 12 months have been nothing short of a steep learning curve. However, Shelton has demonstrated so far that he picks things up quickly, so massive success may not be far away.
