"He’ll do it in the locker room": Ben Shelton names close friend as tennis’ biggest trash talker'

Ben Shelton recently picked one of his compatriots on the Tour as the biggest ‘trash talker.’ The world No. 17 responded to a Q&A session with YouTuber Sharky in a short clip shared on social media by the ATP.

Shelton has been competing this week at the Tokyo Open, where he entered as the defending champion and 8th seed. He secured victories against Reilly Opelka and Mariano Navone but was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Arthur Fils in a tightly contested match (5-7, 7-6(5), 6-7(2)).

When asked who he thinks is the biggest ‘trash talker’ on the Tour, Shelton didn’t hesitate to name one of his close friends, the 25-year-old Frances Tiafoe, who recently knocked Shelton out of the US Open in a five-set third-round battle.

“Foe [Tiafoe], because he’ll do it in the locker room, but he’ll also do it a little bit on the court,” Shelton said in his interview with the ATP Tour. "He’ll be like, ‘hey, man, you’re just way too good today.’”

In a previous US Open interview, Tiafoe spoke about his friendship with Shelton and their dynamic off the court: "You know, he's 20, 21 years old. He's young, funny, cracks jokes. [He's] just about as immature as I am. We always have fun joking around and cracking jokes, for sure,” said the two-time US Open semifinalist.

Currently, Shelton leads their head-to-head 2-1, having secured wins in the 2023 US Open quarterfinals and the ATP 250 Houston Open final back in April. Both will return to competition in a week at the Shanghai Masters, where they remain close in the live rankings: Tiafoe at world No. 16 with 2,560 points and Shelton at No. 15 with 2,580.