Ben Shelton made a winning start at the Dallas Open and reflected upon his dramatic rise in recent months, which he still finds surprising.
Nobody really expected Shelton to become one of the better players on the ATP Tour as quickly as he did. The American himself didn't expect that, and while he worked really hard for it for much of his life, it's still quite surprising to him.
He made the US Open semi-final last year and made his way to the Top 20. On top of that, the youngster also won his maiden trophy at the Japan Open, which was a spectacular run proving that his US Open one was no fluke.
This year didn't start off with a bang like last year, but he made a winning start in Dallas. Speaking after the match, Shelton admitted that he was surprised by his high level as he had not played for three weeks.
"I was pretty surprised with the level I played at today. I felt comfortable out on the court playing and moving. I thought I played a really good match."
Remembering what type of player he was when he started to play on the ATP Tour, Shelton noted a lot of improvement. The biggest one for him is movement, which is significantly better nowadays than where it was at the start of his career. He even joked that he had two left feet before.
"I think the biggest thing for me is my movement. I think a year and a half ago I had two left feet. I couldn't move on the court. Probably there's a lot of people in the stands right now who were moving on the tennis court better than me."
"But I feel like that's the part of my game that improved the most and I'm moving at a pretty high level right now."
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