Ben Shelton is one of the most exciting tennis players on the ATP Tour, but the American actually wanted to pursue another sport before choosing tennis.
Tennis players liking other sports outside of tennis is nothing new. Plenty of them have spoken about their love for other sports over the years, and most of them ended up being great tennis players.
Some even think that playing other sports makes them better tennis players, and it's not an unfounded opinion. Jannik Sinner credits skiing with helping him become a better tennis player.
Rafael Nadal was hugely into football before choosing tennis. Roger Federer was also into football before choosing tennis, as were some lesser-known players, such as Flavio Cobolli, who was a promising football talent before suffering a career-ending injury.
Nick Kyrgios famously loves basketball much more than tennis, so it's nothing new. There aren't many players, though, who had hoped to become National Football League (NFL) players.
They're quite different sports, with the NFL being relatively violent and having a lot of contact compared to tennis. Shelton is among them, though. The American player wanted to become an NFL player first.
He played both American football and baseball as a kid, something he credits with helping him develop a great serve. At 12, Shelton was dead set on pursuing the NFL as a goal, but now, nine years later, he's one of the best players in the world.
"I played lots of other sports growing up. I played basketball, football, baseball, soccer, I played it all. The sport I really fell in love with was American football. I played until I was 12 and that's when I started to take tennis a bit more seriously - probably because my sister was having some success, she's a year and a half older and I wanted to follow in her footsteps."
"First, college football. When you're a little kid and you have those things in school, what do you want to be when you grow up? Every year I wrote pro football player, pro football player, always."
Shelton was naturally exposed to tennis, as his father used to be a player, peaking at number 55 in the world. He later became a college coach, a position he held until becoming his son's primary coach. Some have argued that his father pushed him into tennis, but he denied that.
"That definitely was not the case. I think my dad was OK with me not playing tennis because he knows how hard the path is. He knows tennis is one of the more expensive sports to do and that was going to be coming out of his pocket!"
As he said, he wanted to emulate his sister and eventually fell in love with the sport. These days, Shelton has no regrets about choosing tennis, even though he dreamed about the NFL. Becoming one of the world's best players certainly helps.
"That was the path I dreamed of and hoped to take but I'm happy with where I ended up!"
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