“I’m actually excited to play principal draw of my very first Slam in a foreign country,” Shelton mentioned. “Possibly eight months in the past I wouldn’t assume I’d be on this place, however I’m fortunate I’ve a superb staff round me serving to me.”
Shelton’s girlfriend is Anna Corridor, a heptathlete who gained a bronze medal on the world observe and area championships in Eugene, Ore., in July. Shelton, who was competing in a Challenger in Indianapolis that week, watched her occasions on his cellphone between matches. Each Corridor and Shelton turned skilled final summer season and, although he has trounced her in pickleball, he likes to level out that he’s not the most effective athlete of the 2.
“She’s outshining me,” he mentioned.
“It’s nice, truly,” Goldfine mentioned. “As a result of they problem one another, and she or he completely understands what it takes to be at an elite degree.”
Shelton, at 6-foot-4 and 195 kilos, has a percussive, all-court recreation, primarily based round a big-bang forehand and serve and an attacking mentality that usually carries him to the online. He’s “nonetheless uncooked” and nonetheless determining the most effective patterns of play, in line with Goldfine, who has coached the previous high gamers Todd Martin and Andy Roddick and most lately helped coach the 22-year-old American Sebastian Korda.
However, to Goldfine, Shelton’s upside is obvious.
“I feel with the pure presents he has — his athleticism, his love for competing and for taking challenges head-on and his psychological toughness — I feel Ben has the likelihood to be a fantastic participant who can sometime problem for Grand Slam titles,” he mentioned. “He has all of the variables you see within the high gamers, and being a lefty helps, positively.”
Shelton actually has high quality tennis genes. His father, Bryan, the lads’s tennis coach on the College of Florida, was ranked as excessive as No. 55 throughout his professional profession and reached the fourth spherical of Wimbledon as a qualifier in 1994. Ben’s mom, Lisa, performed junior tennis and is the sister of Todd Witsken, a three-time all-American on the College of Southern California who peaked at No. 43 in singles on the ATP Tour earlier than tragically dying of mind most cancers at age 34.