“I swore that I will never play tennis,” Ben Shelton opens up on initial struggles as he enters the fourth round at the 2023 Australian Open

Ben Shelton recollects his past words and talks about his struggles.


“I swore that I will never play tennis,” Ben Shelton opens up on initial struggles as he enters the fourth round at the 2023 Australian Open

Ben Shelton

The recent American sensation Ben Shelton opens up on his struggles in the initial part of his career. Earlier today, he won the third-round match against the wild card entry Alexei Popyrin. Ben was all over the local boy as he won in straight sets 6-3, 7-6(7-4), 6-4.

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Speaking in the post-match interview he talked about how wanted to grow his tennis rather than focusing on the points. This will be his first fourth round on Monday and he asked for the local people to turn up to his next game and support.

When Ben was reminded about his tennis background in his family, he said “For the first 12 or 13 years of my life, I swore that I will never play tennis. It was my dad’s thing. Then I kind of fell in love with the sport. Hopefully, I can make a career out of it.”

He also spoke about today’s game and said he was more offensive and was happy to finish the game in three sets. Ben also mentioned that he had seen Alexei’s past matches and hence was happy to execute his plans perfectly.

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Ben Shelton cruises into fourth round for the clash of Americans

After his dominating play in the third round, Ben will play his countrymate, J.J. Wolf. This is the pair’s first fourth round ever and it will be an exciting context between two friends on a big stage. Ben had 34 winners against Alexei and had a commanding win over the Aussie. On the other hand, his friend and opponent in the fourth round, Wolf too had an easy third-round match. He had a comfortable victory over another American, Michael Mmoh in a three-setter 6-4, 6-1, 6-2.

Wolf dominated the match in such a way that, it lasted for just about two hours. All in all, it will be an interesting context for fellow Americans in their next round. The irony is that Americans hoped that players like Taylor Fritz and Francis Tiafoe will make it to the round of 16. However, this edition of the Australian Open still has four Americans in the top 16 and none of them had ever been in round four of a major Grand Slam before.

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