Shelton surges into Top 10, 'a big milestone'

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Shelton surges into Top 10, 'a big milestone'

Learn about the American's journey to the Top 10

ATP Tour Ben Shelton has cracked the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Rankings for the first time. By Andrew Eichenholz

Three years ago Ben Shelton had just cracked the Top 500 in the PIF ATP Rankings and was unsure whether he would turn professional following his sophomore year as a student-athlete at the University of Florida. Ever since, the American lefty has been on a rocketship towards the top of the ATP Tour.

Shelton reached his latest milestone on Monday when he broke into the world’s Top 10 for the first time. By joining countrymen Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul in the elite group, there is now a trio of Americans in the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Rankings for the first time since Andre Agassi, James Blake and Andy Roddick in April 2006.

“I’m gonna go look and worry about the end of this tournament first,” Shelton said in Stuttgart Friday during an on-court interview when told of the news. “I’ve got to see it first. So if that is true, that’s really cool, a big milestone in tennis.”

This is only Shelton’s third full season as a professional tennis player, but the 22-year-old has hit few speedbumps en route to the upper echelons of the sport. He is the fourth left-handed American to reach the Top 10 in the history of the PIF ATP Rankings (since 1973), joining Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Roscoe Tanner.

It is an impressive accomplishment for a player who did not always focus on tennis growing up. Shelton was a big fan of American football and even had future NFL great Calvin Johnson at one of his birthday parties. The dynamic young athlete was a quarterback with a big arm and bigger dreams in the sport.

However, tennis is in his blood. Shelton is the son of former World No. 55 Bryan Shelton, who was the head women’s coach at Georgia Institute of Technology before becoming the head men’s coach at the University of Florida. Bryan led both schools to a national championship.

Just before becoming a teen, Ben began to realise that tennis might be the way to go, especially with a top coach and former professional in his family. Shelton later joined his father on the team at the University of Florida and after playing fifth singles for much of his freshman year, won the 2022 NCAA singles title.

The Gator made his ATP Tour debut shortly thereafter in Atlanta and then in August 2022 competed in his first ATP Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati, where he upset then-World No. 5 Casper Ruud in straight sets en route to the third round.

“If he plays like he did today every match for the rest of his career, I think he will reach very far,” Ruud told ATPTour.com at the time. “I think it surprised me a little bit how well he played. I knew he was a young, up and coming, great player. But today he was painting lines as we call it and hitting all the spots he needed to. It was really impressive to see.”

It did not take long after that for Shelton to turn pro and less than three years later, he is up to a career-high World No. 10 and showing no signs of slowing down.

In the past 52 weeks, Shelton’s results include his second major semi-final at the Australian Open and finals in Basel and Munich. In the Top 10, there are now three Americans (Shelton, No. 4 Fritz and No. 8 Paul) and one player from each of seven countries.

Shelton recently made the Roland Garros fourth round. Photo: Peter Staples/ATP Tour.

“The quality of U.S. men's tennis is 100 per cent on the rise,” Shelton said in a press conference at last year’s US Open. “I think that we've had a lot of guys for a while that you think are going to start pushing through into the Top 15, Top 10, guys who have already been there as well who are finding their form again.

“This is the most guys that we've had in this competitive position in a while.”

Shelton will try to continue his rise this week at the HSBC Championships, the ATP 500 held at Queen’s Club in London.

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