WATCH: Musetti Recreates Viral Shelton Celebration At Davis Cup

Saturday, 16 September 2023 at 12:30

byEvita Mueller

Ben Shelton didn't create the phone celebration, but he certainly made it go viral and popular among tennis players.

Since the American started doing it at the US Open, several prominent players have copied it. First, we had Novak Djokovic do it against Shelton after their US Open match, something the youngster apparently found flattering, as explained in the post-match press conference.

He did give him a look during the handshake, so it’s debatable whether he really found it flattering because he seemed quite a bit annoyed by it at the time. His father certainly had some things to say in a recent interview, so the jury's out on that. He was certainly smart enough to downplay it similarly to how Djokovic did.

Since then, we've seen Fabio Fognini do it at a recent ATP challenger event, which many assumed was a message to the Italian Tennis Federation due to his absence from the Italian Davis Cup Team. Now we've seen another Italian do it - Lorenzo Musetti.

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He did it after Italy recently bested Chile in a crucial doubles match at the Davis Cup. The celebration is rather unique; we haven't seen anything like this so far, so it was always going to go viral.

It's interesting to see many tennis players do it, and players generally opt for more lowkey celebrations after winning matches - the whole emphasis is on respect. Shelton explained the origin of it during the US Open, where he admitted that he didn't come up with it.

Well, he certainly made it trendy, so let's see whether it pops up anywhere else. For now, we've seen four tennis players use it, but more might be coming. It is a really cool picture to slam the phone on your opponent as a way of 'shutting them down'. Check it out below.