"It's a little bit more lonely than being in college": Shelton opens up on first full year on ATP Tour as American rising star returns home
ATP
Rising tennis star Ben Shelton has completed his first year on tour as a tennis professional, and the American opened up on his experiences during the tedious season.
Following his second round victory over Dominic Thiem at the 2023 US Open, Shelton was candid about leaving college tennis a year ago to pursue a career as a professional tennis player.
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"Yeah, I think it's a little bit more lonely than being in college," said Shelton when asked about the differences between being a college vs professional tennis player. "You travel with a big team, all your friends. Always staying in a hotel room with somebody else. There's not much downtime or alone time.
"Being out on tour, you have a lot more time to yourself alone in your hotel room, more time to think about things. That can be a positive or a negative (smiling). But I'd say that's one of the biggest differences for me."
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Furthermore, Shelton emphasized on the full schedule on the ATP calendar, whereas college tennis players had more breaks between seasons.
"The other difference is that there's not many breaks in the schedule. It seems like the tour is always going till December. It's just go, go, go, go. I would say I assumed, before I was out here on tour, that there were more down weeks or weeks when there weren't tournaments, but it seems there's always something going on."
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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