ATP: Ben Shelton with the best prospects
18 months ago, without an ATP point, Ben Shelton played his way into the top 100 professionals in the world with a remarkable final sprint.
by tennisnet.com
last edit:
Nov 27, 2022, 12:18 pm
When you think of the rising stars of the tennis year 2022, you can't get past Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune. The Spaniard overwintered as number one in the world, the Dane fell out of the top ten at the very last moment, but would have taken eleventh place in the ATP charts before the start of the year with a kiss on the hand.
But amazing things have also happened further back, highlighted again in the past three weeks: Ben Shelton won three ATP Challenger tournaments in a row in Knoxville, Charlottesville and Champaign. And made it into the top 100 players in the world for the first time. Which is all the more remarkable because the American left-hander hadn't won a single ATP point until a year and a half ago. But only for the University of Florida.
Wins against Sonego and Ruud
Shelton's run, whose father had reached number 55 in the world rankings, did not come as a complete surprise: in the summer, the now 20-year-old defeated Lorenzo Sonego and then Casper Ruud in Cincinnati.
Now Ben Shelton wants to take a few days off and then properly prepare for the new season. In which it could go quite a long way up pretty quickly. Because Shelton does not have a single ATP point to defend until June.