Noted tennis coach Darren Cahill praised Ben Shelton for bringing new energy to the ATP Tour with his exciting style.
Ben Shelton electrified the tennis world with a surprise run earlier this year in Australia. He continued playing solid tennis throughout the year but hit a wall over the summer, looking every bit like a young player who was trying to find himself.
He found himself in spectacular fashion in New York, going to the semi-final, where he bravely played against Novak Djokovic. His two best results this year came on the Grand Slam level, and that bodes really well for the future.
Besides his good play, Shelton brings a certain edge to his matches, reminding Cahill of Nick Kyrgios. He talked about that during a recent episode of the Advantage Connors Podcast.
He's like Kyrgios, you like Kyrgios, you hate him, I don't care. On the tour, he brings something different and people will go out and buy a ticket, and watch these guys play. And Ben brings a real joy in what he's doing on the court, he's not scared, he doesn't care who he is playing.
I love him, I think the fact that Novak took him up a little bit (for his celebrations) was awesome. You can't have robots on tour, you can't have no-personality's on tour.
Cahill didn't only talk about Shelton's personality but also his play. He was quite impressed with the match Shelton played against Djokovic, predicting a very big future for him. He's very young but improving very quickly.
Incredibly brave in the big moments, he was certainly playing to the crowd, enjoying the crowd. Again, you need to put those results week after week to be a factor in the top 10. I think Ben is so young, maybe he's not used to it, maybe a little bit too many expectations came onto his shoulders after the Australian Open.
Now we're going to see Ben consistently improve every week. I'm not saying he's gonna race into the top 5, I think eventually he's a definite top 10 player.
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