NEW YORK — It’s been more than 20 years since an American man won a Grand Slam singles championship, but Ben Shelton believes it’s “inevitable” that it will happen again.
Andy Roddick at the 2003 U.S. Open was the last American man to hoist a major trophy, and Europeans have won 77 of the last 78 Grand Slam titles.
“I think that the gradual improvement of the ranking of American players over the last three, four years, is proof to where we’re going,” Shelton, the 21-year-old Atlanta native, said ahead of the start of the Open on Monday. “I think it’s inevitable that we will have a Grand Slam champion from our country. I don’t know when it’s going to be or who it’s going to be.”
Shelton, the 2022 NCAA singles champion out of the University of Florida and a U.S. Open semifinalist a year ago, comes into the Open ranked No. 13 in the world. Five American men are ranked inside the ATP Top 20 for the first time since October 1996 when Pete Sampras was the world No. 1 and Michael Chang, Andre Agassi and Jim Courier were also among the top-ranked players.
John McEnroe is on record saying he believes Shelton will eventually win a major, while Chrissie Evert picked the huge-serving left-hander to do the best among the American men at the Open.
“I’m going to pick Shelton, only because (of) that lefty serve,” Evert said on an ESPN conference call last week. “I just think he gets so many free points off that serve. I’m just going to pick him to do the best of the American players.”
The issue for Shelton is that he has a very tricky draw this year, beginning with 2020 U.S. Open champion Dominic Thiem in the first round at noon on Monday. Thiem will retire at the end of the year and is not the player he once was.
“I think it definitely has some hype for a first-round match,” Shelton said. “I love playing in those big type-of-moment matches. I hate to see it’s Domi’s last Grand Slam, because when I was starting to get into tennis, that was one of the guys who was killing it on TV every single week.”
Patrick McEnroe picked Shelton to win the match, but his draw would continue to be tough. He could face fellow American and world No. 20 Frances Tiafoe in the third round and then possibly No. 2 and defending champion Novak Djokovic in the fourth round.
A year ago, Shelton defeated Tiafoe in four sets in the quarterfinals before losing to Djokovic in straight sets in the semis. Djokovic, 37 and coming off winning the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, is bidding for a record 25th major title.
But first things first. Shelton must deal with Thiem on Monday.
“I’m happy with where I am in my season,” he said. “I feel fresh mentally and physically. Yeah, excited for this week. Obviously my favorite tournament of the year.”
Shelton said the experience of reaching the semis a year ago has made him more prepared for this year.
“I think that you learn a lot from these experiences how best to recover from a tough five-set match, how to get yourself to sleep after playing the night session here,” Shelton said.
“How each court plays different, whether you’re playing out on Grandstand or Court 10 or on Arthur Ashe. I think there’s a lot of things to think about, depending on the situation you’re in. If you’re someone who is unseeded and maybe you’re playing most of your matches on an outside court, you have a big run, and then suddenly you play one of the big guys on Stadium, you’ve never been in there before.
“So I think that having a little bit better idea of just how the tournaments work, the possible situations that you could be in, rain delays and different things that can happen throughout the week, and not freaking out when they happen, knowing that some of these things are going to happen, and being OK with them, and that’s just our sport.”
While Shelton has the talent to win a major title down the road, Courier, a four-time major winner, said recently on Tennis Channel he thinks Shelton will start to peak physically and mentally in the next 18 months.
“Certainly I have a bunch of goals for myself, but I think that the most important is the every day work, the small improvements, the process, that’s what I focus on,” Shelton said, “and I think that that’s what’s important for me individually and us as a country.”
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