Shelton, Ben (2002- )

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      An All-American Australian Open Quarterfinal: Ben Shelton vs. Tommy Paul

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      Ben Shelton and Tommy Paul are playing for a spot in the Australian Open semifinals. The United States has waited a long time for something like this.MELBOURNE, Australia — Maybe one day, and sooner rather than later, American men swimming in the deep end of the pool at Grand Slam tennis events will stop being noteworthy.That is how it was during the first 40 years of the modern era of tennis, which began in 1968. During that era, some combination of players from the United States — Ashe, Smith, Connors, McEnroe, Agassi, Chang, Sampras, Courier, Roddick — almost always lurked, or even played each other, in the final days of the biggest tournaments.Those days now feel so long ago, an era that was destined to end after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the spread of wealth to Eastern Europe and the growing popularity and accessibility of a previously inaccessible sport beyond its traditional power centers in the United States, Australia, Britain, France and a few other countries in Western Europe.When Ben Shelton and Tommy Paul square off in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open on Wednesday afternoon (Tuesday night in the United States), it will be the first time two Americans have met this late in a Grand Slam event since Andy Roddick played Mardy Fish in Melbourne in 2007.Since one of them has to win, the United States is guaranteed its first Australian Open semifinalist since Roddick in 2009. A third American quarterfinalist, Sebastian Korda, retired with a wrist injury, down, 7-6 (5), 6-3, 3-0, to Karen Khachanov of Russia. Korda could have made it two American Grand Slam semifinalists for the first time since 2005.And yet, since early last summer, American men’s tennis has been having a moment that had been promised ever since the United States Tennis Association realized it had a serious problem on its hands some 15 years ago. This is what the U.S.T.A. had in mind when it began a development academy in 2008.The program has changed since then, switching to an emphasis on periodic camps for promising young players rather than having them leave home as young teenagers. But the goal has always been to develop a critical mass of players to compete regularly at the most important tournaments. American women, led by Serena and Venus Williams, could always do it. Not so for the men. Then last summer, results began to show.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.No Spotlight, No Problem: In tennis, there is a long history of success and exposure crushing champions or sucking the joy out of them. In this Australian Open, players under the radar have gone far.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Endless Games: As matches stretch into the early-morning hours, players have grown concerned for their health and performance.A New Style Star: Frances Tiafoe may have lost his shot at winning the Australian Open, but his swirly “himbo” look won him fashion points.“This is what we’ve been working for,” Martin Blackman, the general manager for player development at the U.S.T.A., said as he sat on a bench across from Centre Court at Wimbledon in July.There, four American men made the final 16. Taylor Fritz barely lost to Rafael Nadal in a fifth-set tiebreaker in the quarterfinals. Two months later, at the U.S. Open, Frances Tiafoe became a sensation on his way to a semifinal loss to Carlos Alcaraz, the eventual champion and world No. 1.Those tournaments were a little different though.Wimbledon had barred Russians and Belarusians from participating because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That took three dangerous opponents — Daniill Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Khachanov — out of the draw.At the 2022 U.S. Open, Tiafoe was the only American to make it to the fourth round. But his victory over Nadal and near-upset of Alcaraz, combined with Fritz’s title at Indian Wells, Calif., in March, produced a new level of confidence among a collection of players 25 and younger, several of whom have been traveling, training and playing together since their early teenage years.“We expect to do well,” Paul, 25, said last week in an interview on a sun-splashed terrace in Melbourne as he watched another promising young American, Jenson Brooksby, beat Norway’s Casper Ruud, the second seed and a finalist at the French and U.S. Opens last year. “We probably expect to have at least a few of us in the second week. That’s our goal, and I know some of us want to go deeper.”He also served what turned out to be notice that afternoon.“We got Ben Shelton coming,” he said of the 20-year-old N.C.A.A. champion.Paul has taken the young player under his wing since Shelton turned professional in the middle of last year.“Kind of helped me navigate some of the early stages of a professional career,” Shelton said of Paul on Monday night, after his fourth-round win over another young American, J.J. Wolf, 24. “He’s been a good friend.”A good friend but never an opponent. They have hit just once, warming up together in Ohio last summer. Paul’s plan ahead of the quarterfinal was to watch videos of Shelton’s matches. What he will see is a dangerous lefty, seemingly fearless beyond his years, with a thumping serve and a fast-improving power game from the baseline.Shelton is still taking classes at the University of Florida and is determined to get his degree. He said he was lucky the semester had just started, so balancing school work with preparing for his matches was not a problem.Shelton also had the good fortune of a kind draw. Ranked 89th in the world at the beginning of the tournament, he has yet to face a seeded player. Most of his opponents have been lower ranked. One received a wild card. Another survived the qualifying tournament.Paul, ranked 35th, peaked at 29th in the world last year. He won the French Open boys’ singles title in 2015. Since then, though, he and his close friends and countrymen — Tiafoe, Fritz and Reilly Opelka — have watched players they beat as juniors achieve more than they have. But he believed he would play in the late stages of a Grand Slam event, even if, as he put it, some people might have considered him somewhat delusional in recent years.Born in New Jersey and raised in North Carolina, where he grew up playing on clay courts in Greenville, N.C., Paul is an all-court player with quick feet. He also has a frightening serve that topped out at 137 miles per hour during his fourth-round win over Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain. The ball off his racket sounds like wood popping in a campfire.Between points, and even in his service motion, there is a languid quality to his movements. Then the point begins and, if he is on, Paul is all grit, touch and force. But he is also comfortable banging and scrambling as long as the point requires.Lately, he has been playing with a freakish display of calm that betrays none of his internal tension. It’s the aspect of his game that he has worked on the hardest over the past 18 months.“That’s the hard part of playing tennis, right?” he said. “You got to keep calm.”That is especially true during five-set matches in Grand Slam events that include plenty of peaks and valleys, both physical and mental. Shelton, whose father, Bryan, played on the ATP Tour in the 1990s and now coaches both his son and the men’s team at Florida, has endured some early lessons in that. Two of his four matches have gone the distance. One ended in a fifth-set tiebreaker.For Paul and Shelton, doing Tiafoe one better and becoming the first American man to make a Grand Slam final since Roddick lost to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009, still may be too high a mountain to climb. The winner gets a likely semifinal match with Novak Djokovic, the nine-time Australian Open champion with 21 Grand Slam titles who is rounding into form as the tournament wears on.Paul would relish that chance anyway. He has waited a long time for it, and so has his country. More

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      Ben Shelton Masters a Tricky Fifth Set at the Australian Open. Holger Rune Does Not.

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      Neither Shelton, 20, nor Rune, 19, had gone this deep at the Australian Open. Playing in fourth-round matches on different courts, only one advanced to the quarterfinals.MELBOURNE, Australia — Two young tennis players born just six months apart were in different arenas but in the same predicament on Monday: trying to figure out how to prevail in a fifth set.Neither Holger Rune nor Ben Shelton had been this far at an Australian Open.Shelton, a 20-year-old American lefty with a friendly manner and an unfriendly serve, had never played in the Australian Open at all until this month: not even as a junior.But both powerful and hungry youngsters were on the brink of reaching the quarterfinals on opposite ends of the vast concourse at Melbourne Park that leads from the main court, Rod Laver Arena, to John Cain Arena.Rune, a 19-year-old from Denmark who entered the tournament ranked 10th in the world after a breakthrough 2022 season, was in Laver Arena facing the No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev in one of the featured matches of the day.The unseeded Shelton was somewhere closer to Off Broadway in Cain Arena facing J.J. Wolf, another unseeded American aiming for a breakthrough.Laver Arena was full. Cain Arena was not, with only a few fans seated on its sunny side on a warm yet hardly torrid day.But there were still shouts, roars and plenty of shifts in momentum in both venues before both matches arrived at a decisive fifth set, part of the learning curve for a professional men’s tennis player.Rune and Shelton had each played just one five-setter before arriving in Melbourne. Rune cramped in his five-set defeat to Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea at last year’s Australian Open; Shelton ran out of steam in his five-set defeat to Nuno Borges of Portugal at last year’s U.S. Open, his only previous major tournament.“Five sets in the heat, I barely survived,” Shelton said. “My fitness wasn’t near what I needed it to be at. So, I’ve worked really hard these last five or six months to get to where I want to be.”He has hired Daniel Pohl, the German fitness trainer who has worked with Naomi Osaka. Shelton was smart on Monday: toning down his natural exuberance early against Wolf to save fuel; dominating the fourth-set tiebreaker; jumping out to a quick lead in the fifth set; and then building on it to win, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-2.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Victoria Azarenka’s Deep Run: The Belarusian tennis player has taken a more process-oriented approach than in the past. The outcomes have been good so far.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Endless Games: As matches stretch into the early-morning hours, players have grown concerned for their health and performance.A New Style Star: Frances Tiafoe may have lost his shot at winning the Australian Open, but his swirly “himbo” look won him fashion points.Wolf, 24, never broke Shelton’s serve in five sets, getting only two break points. Now Shelton will play in another all-American match against Tommy Paul, 25, in the first Grand Slam quarterfinal for both. Paul, already an established threat on the tour with victories over Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, advanced with a victory, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5, over the No. 24 seed Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain.With Sebastian Korda already in the quarterfinals, there are three American men among the final eight in Australia for the first time since 2000 when Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and the much lesser-known Chris Woodruff reached that stage.Shelton, who won the 2022 Division I men’s singles championship at the University of Florida and then turned professional that August, has had a fine draw here, facing no opponents ranked in the top 50. His returns need lots of work but after saving a match point in the first round against Zhang Zhizhen of China, he has continued to rise to the occasion, embracing the matches and the post-match interviews with the same enthusiasm.In only his second major tournament, Shelton has gone one round farther than his father and coach, Bryan Shelton, whose best Grand Slam run was to the fourth round at Wimbledon in 1994. He will also pass his father’s best career ranking of 55, breaking into the top 50 next week.“I try not to think about that at all,” Ben Shelton said of the comparison. “My dad’s the reason I’m here. I wouldn’t be here without him. They say you do better on your second try, and I think the way he coaches and explains the game to me and all the life experiences he’s given me, and my mom as well, are pretty much the sole reason I’m in the position I’m in.”Holger Rune after losing to Andrey Rublev in five sets.Martin Keep/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere is a gentle side to Shelton, much gentler than his running forehand, while Rune stalks the court with his long, elastic strides like a predator in search of the next meal.Still a teenager, Rune is already an imposing, intimidating physical presence, with rippling muscles in his legs and nervous energy as he adjusts his backward ball cap, picks at his shirt and shifts his weight as he prepares for the next rally.“I have so much passion to play matches, to compete,” he said. “To play tennis in this event is what I’ve been dreaming about since I was a little kid, so I’m leaving it all out there.”That approach worked in November when he swept through the field at the Paris Maters indoor event, beating Novak Djokovic in the final. And it looked like it would do the job again Monday when he served for the match at 5-3 in the fifth set against Rublev, the combustible shaggy-haired Russian who seems to throw his lean frame, and a percussive grunt, into each shot with every fiber of his being.In all, Rublev reeled off eight consecutive points before Rune held serve to 6-5 and then earned himself two match points in the next game.Rublev saved the first with a wide serve that Rune could not handle and the second with a crosscourt forehand that Rune could not handle.Andrey Rublev reeled Holger Rune in with great serves and one bold forehand that landed on the outer edge of a sideline.Martin Keep/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe made it into the tiebreaker, only to see Rune jump out to a 5-0 lead. On other occasions, Rublev might have lost the plot, shouting at the injustice of it all, breaking rackets or pounding himself on the side of the head. But he kept it comparatively together this time, and he had time to recover because all the majors use a first-to-10-point final-set tiebreaker.Rublev slowly reeled Rune in with great serves and one bold forehand that landed on the outer edge of a sideline that left Rune wincing.Rublev soon led, 9-7, with two match points. Though Rune saved the first with a first serve, he had to produce something more extraordinary on the second: a running backhand pass winner down the line after Rublev chose not to hit to the open court with a swing volley.It was 9 all, and it was loud, very loud, with Rublev biting on his shirt collar and Rune pointing to his ears to ask for even more volume from the fans. Instead, he got an unlucky bounce.On Rublev’s next match point at 10-9 he hit a backhand return off Rune’s second serve that smacked into the net cord. Rublev was sure the ball was going to fall back on his side of the net. Instead, it trickled over and bounced on Rune’s side for a match-ending winner.“The luckiest probably moment of my life,” Rublev said. “Now I can go casino. If I put for sure I’m going to win.”Both men dropped their rackets, and Rublev dropped to the ground. He rose with tears in his eyes to embrace the youngster whose time, one expects, will come given all the tools already at his disposal.But potential is one thing, converting it another, and it may not be easy for Rune to shake off such a defeat. The image from Monday that will stick with observers was Rublev celebrating with both arms raised and Rune slumped in a chair behind him, both hands covering his face.“Of course, it’s not the end of the world, but it hurts,” Rune said. “I have to look at the other side, that there’s a few things I could have done better, so when I’m playing the next Grand Slam this won’t happen again hopefully.”Rublev, 0-6 in Grand Slam quarterfinals, gets to keep playing in this tournament, though perhaps not for long considering that he will next face Djokovic, a nine-time Australian Open champion who looked like a man back on a mission (and a healthy hamstring) on Monday as he demolished the Australian Alex de Minaur, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2.“The only chance I have is if I play my best tennis,” Rublev said.That sounds about right. More

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      At the Australian Open, American Men Advance en Masse

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      Sebastian Korda, Ben Shelton, J.J. Wolf and Tommy Paul all made the fourth round in singles. Not since 2004 have four men from the United States gone this far in Melbourne.MELBOURNE, Australia — There were 94,854 fans at the Australian Open on Saturday, setting a single-day attendance record.But perhaps even more surprising than the size of the audience was that four American men remained in contention for the men’s singles title: Sebastian Korda, Ben Shelton, J.J. Wolf and Tommy Paul.None of them have made it this far at the Open until now, and Shelton, the youngest at age 20, had never played in Australia or anywhere outside the United States until a few weeks ago.The two highest-ranked Americans and most likely candidates to go deeper in Melbourne are missing. Taylor Fritz, the No. 8 seed, and Frances Tiafoe, the No. 16 seed, have already been eliminated. Reilly Opelka, the imposing 7-foot-tall big server who broke into the top 20 last year, is recovering from hip surgery. Mackenzie McDonald, the former U.C.L.A. star who upset Rafael Nadal in the second round, was beaten in his next match.But Korda, Shelton, Wolf and Paul all advanced to the round of 16, a sign of the renewed strength and depth of American men’s tennis.“These young guys are coming up, pushing each other,” said Dean Goldfine, one of Shelton’s coaches. “I think that’s one of the things that’s contributing to our success right now as a country. We have these waves. It’s not just one guy here, one guy there. We’ve got a bunch of them, and I think there’s a friendly rivalry there.”The last time there were four American men in the fourth round of the Australian Open in singles was in 2004 with Andre Agassi, James Blake, Robby Ginepri and Andy Roddick. All were stars or established threats, though it was Ginepri’s deepest run at that stage in a major.Tommy Paul will face Roberto Bautista Agut, a Spanish veteran who is seeded 24th.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMost of this year’s group is just getting started. Paul, 25, is the oldest: an acrobatic all-court player with excellent timing who can take the ball extremely early. He also reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year and broke into the top 30 under the tutelage of veteran coach Brad Stine. He switched racket brands in the off-season — often a risky move — but has been sharp in Melbourne and dominated fellow American Jenson Brooksby on Saturday, winning in straight sets.Paul will face Roberto Bautista Agut, a Spanish veteran who is seeded 24th and is the only seeded player left in the bottom quarter of the draw.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.A New Style Star: Frances Tiafoe may have lost his shot at winning the Australian Open, but his swirly “himbo” look won him fashion points.Caroline Garcia: The top-five player has spoken openly about her struggles with an eating disorder. She is at the Australian Open chasing her first Grand Slam singles title.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Endless Games: As matches in professional tennis stretch into the early-morning hours, players have grown concerned for their health and performance.The other players in that section are Shelton and Wolf, former collegiate standouts who will face each other on Monday. Shelton won the N.C.A.A. singles title last year for the University of Florida, where he was coached by his father Bryan Shelton, a former ATP Tour player. Wolf, 24, played for three years at Ohio State, where he was an All-American and the Big Ten player of the year in 2019.Ben Shelton and Wolf have become friendly since Shelton turned pro last August. “I had seen him play in college tennis, but he was older than me, so we never competed against each other,” Shelton said of Wolf. “We’re good friends, like to joke around a lot, have a lot of locker room banter.”Both are solidly built and powerful. Wolf has one of the most penetrating forehands in the game. Shelton, a left-hander, has one of the most intimidating serves, frequently surpassing 124 miles per hour. He has won 83 percent of his first-serve points in Melbourne and 64 percent of his second-serve points. Shelton was not broken on Saturday as he prevailed over Alexei Popyrin, the Australian who upset Fritz in the second round and again had a big home crowd ready to support him in John Cain Arena.“They kind of set the tone when I walked out on the court, and I got booed,” said Shelton, laughing. “Similar to some away matches and college atmospheres that I have been at but definitely amplified today. The sound in there kind of just vibrates.”But Shelton’s dominant play in his victory, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-4, often meant that the arena was unusually quiet. His shouts of “Come on!” reverberated through the space.“Honestly, if this is the way he plays day in, day out, the guy is top 10 in six months,” Popyrin said.Consistency can be elusive at this level, particularly when you take the risks that Shelton does. But he continues to make a big impression as he embarks on his first full season on tour.“I definitely wouldn’t have thought that I would be here in this moment six months ago or four months ago,” said Shelton, who was ranked outside the top 500 in May.This is only his second Grand Slam tournament after losing in the first round of last year’s U.S. Open, but he already has guaranteed himself a spot in the top 70 and also equaled his father’s best performance in a Grand Slam event. Bryan Shelton reached the fourth round of Wimbledon as a qualifier in 1994.Ben Shelton celebrated after defeating Alexei Popyrin.James Ross/EPA, via ShutterstockBryan Shelton is not in Melbourne because he is in the middle of the collegiate tennis season. Florida had a match on Saturday, but he got up early to watch his son’s match in Australia because of the time difference.“I think I messed up his sleep schedule a little bit,” Ben Shelton said.Both Shelton and Wolf come from athletic families. Wolf’s sister Danielle also played tennis at Ohio State, and his mother, Brooke, played for Miami of Ohio. His grandfather Charles Wolf coached the Cincinnati Royals and the Detroit Pistons in the N.B.A.But the American in the fourth round with the most successful athletic family is the 22-year-old Korda. His parents were leading professional tennis players: his father, Petr, was No. 2 on the ATP Tour and won the Australian Open; his mother, Regina, was ranked in the top 30 on the WTA Tour. Korda’s two older sisters, Nelly and Jessica, are leading women’s professional golfers: Nelly has been ranked No. 1 in the world; Jessica is currently No. 18.“I’m definitely the worst athlete in the family so far,” Sebastian Korda said on Friday after defeating the former world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev in straight sets in the third round for the biggest victory of his career.But Korda, seeded 29th at the Australian Open, looks poised to move up in his family’s rankings. At 6-foot-5, he has a fluid, deceptively powerful game full of variety and though he has come close to major upsets against the game’s biggest stars, holding match points before losing to Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, he held firm against the 7th-seeded Medvedev in Rod Laver Arena to win, 7-6 (7), 6-3, 7-6 (4).Korda’s American peers were closely watching him as they prepared for their own challenges.“I was in my hotel room, stretching and taking care of myself, but I was glued to the TV,” Wolf said. “He was playing amazing.”J.J. Wolf in action during the first round of the Australian Open.Lukas Coch/EPA, via Shutterstock More

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      At the Australian Open, Ben Shelton Is Ready to Go Global

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      Shelton, 20, is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour and his first trip outside the United States.MELBOURNE, Australia — Pro tennis is one of the most international sports, but the American Ben Shelton has only just become global.This Australian Open, which starts on Monday, is part of his first trip outside the United States. His passport is in mint condition; his eyes are almost as big as his lefty serve.“A whole lot of blue; it almost doesn’t look real,” Shelton said as he walked the grounds at Melbourne Park, with its azure signage and courts, for the first time this week. “It’s like an alternate world.”Shelton, a strapping and mop-topped 20-year-old from Gainesville, Fla., who is embarking on his first full season on tour, earned his spot in Melbourne in a hurry, making the biggest leap into the year-end top 100 of any men’s singles player in 2022.He did it by winning in the big leagues: He upset Casper Ruud, a French Open and U.S. Open finalist in 2022, in the second round of the Masters 1000 event in Mason, Ohio, in August.But Shelton did it, above all, by winning in the minor leagues, taking three consecutive titles indoors on the Challenger circuit in November to secure direct entry into the Australian Open based on his ranking. He had already guaranteed himself a wild-card slot — part of a reciprocal agreement for Grand Slam entries between the United States Tennis Association and Tennis Australia — by compiling the best results among eligible Americans in the late season. But that was not the path down under that he preferred.“Ben was like, ‘I don’t want to see that W.C. next to my name,’ and so he dug down in the final of that last Challenger,” said Dean Goldfine, one of his coaches. “I think a lot of guys would have been satisfied, and he was exhausted from playing three weeks in a row. But he powered through, and that put him in the top 100.”The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Missing Stars: Carlos Alcaraz, Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios have all pulled out of the tournament. Alcaraz’s withdrawal means that the Australian Open will be without the men’s No. 1 singles player.Talent From China: Shang Juncheng, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave of players that also includes Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen.Holger Rune’s Rise: Last year, the 19-year-old broke into the top 10, but not without some unwanted attention. We spoke to the young Dane ahead of his second Australian Open.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.In early June, shortly after winning the N.C.A.A. singles title as a sophomore at the University of Florida, Shelton was ranked No. 547. This week, he is up to No. 92 and practicing in Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne with the likes of Rafael Nadal, the Spanish megastar and reigning Australian Open champion. Nadal was in need of a powerful left-handed sparring partner to prepare for his tricky opening-round match Monday against the rising British 21-year-old Jack Draper.Shelton, a Nadal admirer, was delighted to get the call and will face the unseeded Zhang Zhizhen of China on Tuesday in his Australian Open debut.Nadal, above, was in need of a powerful left-handed sparring partner to prepare for his tricky opening-round match. Shelton, below, was delighted to get the call.Cameron Spencer/Getty Images“I’m really excited to play main draw of my very first Slam out of the country,” Shelton said. “Maybe eight months ago I wouldn’t think I’d be in this position, but I’m lucky I have a good team around me helping me.”Shelton’s girlfriend is Anna Hall, a heptathlete who won a bronze medal at the world track and field championships in Eugene, Ore., in July. Shelton, who was competing in a Challenger event in Indianapolis that week, watched her events on his phone between matches. Both Hall and Shelton turned professional last summer and, though he has trounced her in pickleball, he likes to point out that he is not the best athlete of the two.“She’s outshining me,” he said.“It’s great, actually,” Goldfine said. “Because they challenge each other, and she totally understands what it takes to be at an elite level.”Shelton, at 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds, has a percussive, all-court game, based around a big-bang forehand and serve and an attacking mentality that often carries him to the net. He is “still raw” and still figuring out the best patterns of play, according to Goldfine, who has coached the former top players Todd Martin and Andy Roddick and most recently helped coach the 22-year-old American Sebastian Korda.But, to Goldfine, Shelton’s upside is clear.“I think with the natural gifts he has — his athleticism, his love for competing and for taking challenges head-on and his mental toughness — I think Ben has the possibility to be a great player who can someday challenge for Grand Slam titles,” he said. “He has all the variables you see in the top players, and being a lefty helps, definitely.”Shelton certainly has fine tennis genes. His father, Bryan, the men’s tennis coach at the University of Florida, was ranked as high as No. 55 during his pro career and reached the fourth round of Wimbledon as a qualifier in 1994. Ben’s mother, Lisa, played junior tennis and is the sister of Todd Witsken, a three-time all-American at the University of Southern California who peaked at No. 43 in singles on the ATP Tour before tragically dying of brain cancer at age 34.Ben’s older sister Emma is a senior on the University of Florida women’s team and was the only Shelton sibling serious about tennis until Ben quit playing football when he was 11.“It was just for a year, but it turned out to be forever,” Bryan Shelton said. “Even though he wasn’t the happiest in the world to go out there on court and drill with me, as soon as he got to compete, man, I mean the lights came on, and he was so excited about it. So that part I thought was pretty special. Some people shy away from competition, and he never did.“I always say he’s like a Labrador retriever: You throw the ball, he’s going to run and go get it. And if you throw it again, he’s going to run and go get it again and again and again. So, you know, he has a passion for it,” he said.Ben’s trip to Melbourne is a full-circle moment for the Shelton family: Bryan and Lisa met in Melbourne during the 1993 Australian Open.“How cool is that?” Ben said.Lisa, who was helping her brother in 1993, has not returned to Australia. Bryan has not been back since 1997, and despite being his son’s primary coach, he won’t be returning this year either because of his college coaching commitments. But he is in daily contact with Ben and his traveling coach, Goldfine, who works for the U.S.T.A.’s player-development program.“We’ve already started watching some of the video on Zhang,” Goldfine said of himself and Bryan Shelton. “We are always bouncing ideas off each other.”Goldfine, 57, and Ben exchange plenty as well, teasing each other, in particular, about the generational gap.“Dean couldn’t believe I didn’t know ‘Hotel California,’” Ben said, briefly halting practice on Thursday to share the story. “And I was like, ‘Dean, look at my phone and you won’t know any of the songs on my playlist.’”Ben is the first reigning N.C.A.A. men’s singles champion to break into the top 100 since Tim Mayotte in 1981. He is also the youngest of the 14 American men in the Australian Open, and his breakthrough to this level gives the United States an even deeper roster of promising men’s talent. There are nine Americans in the top 50, led by Taylor Fritz, and eight of them are 25 years old or younger.Ben has met most of them. As a young boy, he remembers watching Frances Tiafoe and Reilly Opelka play a junior tournament in Kalamazoo, Mich., where Bryan Shelton was scouting potential recruits.At that stage, there was no way to know that Ben would be the future No. 1 at Florida, of course. Though the team plays on without him, he is pursuing a business degree online and following the Gators’ scores and live streams from afar.“I’m definitely going to miss being around a bunch of my best friends and being able to go out there on the court playing for something much bigger than myself,” Ben said. “But I’m excited to see what they do and be able to be in the stands cheering them on whenever I’m home during the spring.” More