Ben Shelton has continued his comfortable passage through the Australian Open, having beaten Valentin Vacherot to reach the fourth round.
It marked the third straight match where he did not drop a set, having faced just four break points all tournament thus far. He is serving supremely well and backing it up with a rock-solid ground game too.
It feels like Ben Shelton’s rise to prominence over the last few years has been meteoric, making the transition from college tennis to the professional tour with ease.
He is widely regarded as one of the most promising players within the men’s game, poised to soon step up to challenge Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
If he is to make that move though, he’ll need to take his superb Grand Slam record to the next level.
Ben Shelton explains why he always performs at Grand Slams
Shelton has only really played three full seasons on tour, and yet is already a Masters 1000 champion and a two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist.
Having reached another two quarter-finals as well, his record at the major level is exceptional given his relative lack of experience.
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Asked about his penchant for the biggest stages, he admitted: “Yeah, I think I play my best tennis at these big tournaments. I think that the format and then also the atmosphere factor into that.
“For me, playing five sets, you have so much time. You can be free at times. You can swing free. Yeah, it feels like you have enormous amount of time to figure things out out there on the court. There’s no rush.
“So, me personally, I like that feeling. Like you said, I think there’s a lot to work on, especially taking it to best-of-three matches. That’s just the next progression and evolution for me.
“But I think also, at the same time, you have great examples of guys in the game right now who are maybe a year older than me or a year younger than me with Alcaraz and Sinner but who were both kind of out on tour while I was still in college, you know. They started around 2020, 2021, but if you look at their win percentages at slams, I saw something about Alcaraz yesterday that he won, like, 87 out of his first 100 matches at slams. I think it’s a ridiculous stat, a record or tied a record.
“So I think you have some good guys to chase after in that regard. Obviously big-time players, you’re going to see a lot of stats like that.”
Shelton was told he has a trait that will help him challenge Alcaraz and Sinner. Hopefully, for the competitiveness of men’s tennis, he can use it to take the next step sooner rather than later.
Ben Shelton’s record at all four Grand Slam tournaments
Shelton will be delighted to learn that, of the four Grand Slam tournaments, he boasts his best win percentage at the Australian Open.
In statistics that were correct before this ongoing event began, the American had won 79% of his matches in Melbourne, having lost just three matches at the tournament from the 14 he has contested.
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Perhaps even more impressively, his overall major win rate is at 71%, and will likely only improve after this tournament has concluded and the figures updated.
