“They kind of set the tone when I walked on court, and I got booed”: Shelton laughs off hostile reception after Popyrin win

The 20-year-old american played to a full stadium that supported the Aussie, and now will face J.J Wolf

Ben Shelton traveled outside his country for the first time to play a tournament and had to play against a large crowd in his match against Alexey Popyrin. The left-hander knocked out Chinese Zhang Zhizhen and Chilean Nicolás Jarry in the first two rounds and played at the Melbourne Arena against the 23-year-old Australian. The American showed a great serve and didn’t concede a break to eliminate Popyrin in front of his home crowd.

The world No. 89 commented on the hostile reception at the third-round match: “They kind of set the tone when I walked on court, and I got booed”

“I can always respect a whole country getting behind their guy, so it was really cool to see”, he said. Shelton took the situation with humor, and said that it does not bother him to play with the crowd against:

“I find it easy to play free when the crowd is coming at you and being aggressive. I enjoy that hostile atmosphere”.

“Definitely a few moments today where I was looking around, like, ‘Wow, this stadium is pretty packed”, and added that “It was unbelievable. I definitely wouldn’t have thought that I would be here in this moment six months ago, four months ago.”

He also spoke about the match he played: This was the first match where I really felt like, ‘Wow, I’m on, everything is clicking, and I feel good about my game. I’m moving really well”

“I told myself that I wanted to give myself more of a green light today when I played, not be as hesitant in the middle of the points, but really go for my shots a bit more, and be OK with some errors and know that it was going to pay off in the long run.”, Shelton said.