Ben Shelton generated a lot of buzz this year, and he's among those Andy Roddick could see winning a Grand Slam title.
Roddick is uniquely qualified to talk about this because he's the last American who actually won a Grand Slam trophy for his team. It happened a very long time ago, in 2003, so the drought has been real. The United States just had a Grand Slam champion in Coco Gauff, and now they want to see a man do it.
There are plenty of candidates, such as Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul, Ben Shelton, and others, but for Roddick, who spoke to the Tennis Channel, Shelton seems to have that upside, reminding him of Nick Kyrgios.
He's a player who's going to be very dominant on his serve, which should give him a pretty good chance at several events. He made the semi-final at the US Open, pushing Djokovic pretty well. He also had a really good run at the Australian Open, and those are two events where he can do a lot of damage with his serve.
I mean your guess is as good as mine. I think it's a coin flip between any one of five guys. Obviously Ben Shelton has the upside. He's going to be like a Kyrgios-type who is going to hold 90 % of his service games.
As a former Grand Slam champion, Roddick fully understands what goes into the process of preparing to win a Grand Slam. You have to practice a lot and hit a certain level of tennis that puts you above others.
You also need to be mature enough, basically become ready to win a Grand Slam to handle the moment, and then go out and do it. There are a lot of things that need to go well but for Roddick, Shelton seems like a decent pick to get it done.
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