Big dreaming Ben Shelton wants to be best in show

It’s no wonder that pundits and players alike are high on the future of 20-year-old American Ben Shelton. He barely has 25 ATP matches under his belt and already he’s a Grand Slam quarter-finalist and a top 40 player. 

The 20-year-old, a former NCAA singles champion at the University of Florida, appears to be ticketed for the top 10, but even that won’t be enough to satisfy Shelton’s appetite, which is as massive as his booming game. 

“I have full belief in myself that I can win Grand Slams, that I can be number one in the world,” he told his good friends Frances Tiafoe and Chris Eubanks at a special UTS dinner in Paris for the new UTS video “All on the table, tennis talk like never before”. . “And I’m not afraid to put in work whatever it takes to get there.” 

Shelton has been paying attention to the greats of the game, and he knows he wants to follow their lead now that he’s a rising pro.

“I want to be one of those guys, you are scared of the type of animal they are,” he said. “Like Rafael Nadal, you are scared because you know that he’s been outworking you for the past I don’t know how many years, but every single day he’s doing things to better himself.”

The left-hander with one of the most wicked serves on tour sees a future on tour where his reputation will precede him. 

“I want to be that dude in the draw that there’s not one player who wants to see me,” he said. “I’m talking scared of me, genuinely, like Roger in his prime – he pulls up to a tournament, everyone’s thinking about him.” 

Shelton may be relatively inexperienced, but he’s confident in his abilities, and in the power of his mind. 

“I think one of the craziest things about this sport is the amount of belief that you have,” he says, as Tiafoe and Eubanks look on and agree. “Like you see people speak things into existence all the time.”

In addition to being a beast that nobody wants to face, Shelton says he wants to create a legacy that goes far beyond the sport. 

“I think it’d be cool to have a story not just on the court,” he said. “I want to be a champion in tennis, but look at Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Roger Federer. The stories that they have on the court, off the court, all the things that they have done that’s not just being a tennis player. I think that’s the coolest opportunity that I see in being a professional athlete. 

“I want to be able to say something on a big stage one day and have it really carry some weight.”

Credit Shelton for having the courage to speak openly about his vision. Like the Big Three vision questers that have gone before him, he’s unafraid of putting himself out there and letting the world know that he yearns to be a force in our sport.