On a day filled with news from the clay courts, American talent Ben Shelton recorded his first-ever ATP win on this surface.
The 20-year-old is one of the biggest talents of American tennis and many predict him to have a great future. This year, Shelton left the United States for the first time when he traveled to Australia, and now he visited also Europe for the first time in his life. The youngster received a wild card for the 2023 Estoril Open and made his clay-court debut on the ATP Tour.
Thanks to his previous success, Shelton is seeded eighth in Estoril and in the first round, he was drawn against Constant Lestienne from France. The Frenchman struggles in 2023 and that presented a great opportunity for the American to do well on the red dirt.
Shelton's main weapon is his serve, which proved to be the strongest at the Australian Open, and for that reason, he may find less success on the clay courts, but he showed that he's able to hit aces also on this surface, as he hit 8 against Lestienne and won 83% of points after his first serve.
In the first set, both players were serving without any major difficulties, winning games without losing more than one point. But everything changed in the tenth game. Lestienne felt the chance to break his opponent and win the first set and he got very close to doing that.
The French player had one set point, but Shelton fought back, and he fought back in a style. The American had his first break point in the next game and he used it to lead in the match for the first time. Then, he served out the first set, winning it 7-5.
The second set was very similar to the first one. This time, players traded breaks early in the set, but held onto their service games for the rest of the set until the eleventh game. Shelton broke again and after another hold of serve, he won the match 7-5, 7-5 in an hour and 36 minutes.
In the second round of the 2023 Estoril Open, the youngster may face a real challenge as he'll face the winner of the match between the two-time Roland Garros finalist, Dominic Thiem, and qualifier Sebastian Ofner.
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