Ben Shelton impressed many earlier this year with his incredible run at the Australian Open however he's been showing promise for a long time before that.
Shelton showed a lot of promise years ago and it's been confirmed when he made his way to the pros. Last year was finished with a string of successful challenger events which propelled him into the top 100 and his breakout came at the Australian Open. It's been slow progress ever since but he's young so there is a lot of time.
He'll need to have patience before he gets to where he wants to go but he's enjoying himself as he simply loves to play tennis.
"I think he's probably a year or two away from like Top 10ish or whatever, consistently at that level and then will probably be there for a very long time. But man, that guy has all the tools and he's exciting and he smiles all the time. He's having fun out there," said tennis journalist Eric Hubbs.
Hubbs further thinks that Shelton is actually a really good pick to win a grand slam for the US in the future. His assumption is not whether Shelton wins one but whether any of the other Americans win one before him:
"The question is not 'if' an American player breaks through, it's whether someone does it before Ben Shelton does. That's the way I'm looking at it. Can [Taylor] Fritz, Tommy [Paul], [Francis]Tiafoe, Sebi [Sebastian Korda], can one of those guys win a Slam before Shelton does, because Shelton's gonna win."