Ben Shelton is one of many ATP players hoping to end American’s drought of not having a men’s Grand Slam singles champion.
Shelton has reached two major semi-finals in his young career so far, with his most recent coming at the Australian Open in January.
After his strong start to the season, Shelton achieved a career-high ranking and was knocking on the door of the top 10 for the first time.
Jack Draper believes that goal is in Shelton’s future, but the 22-year-old faced a setback after losing his only match at the Miami Open to wildcard Coleman Wong.
Andre Agassi tells Ben Shelton where he is going wrong
American players on the WTA Tour have been having a very successful season so far in 2025, but the US men have not been so impressive.
The last American ATP player to win a Grand Slam singles title was Andy Roddick at the 2003 US Open.
Someone who knows a thing or two about winning majors is Andre Agassi, having lifted eight Grand Slams in his decorated career.
When recently speaking at the Arizona Tennis Classic, Agassi highlighted what the aforementioned Shelton needed to do to break America’s Grand Slam drought.
“I mean, first of all they are doing a fantastic job to even be in the discussion to get them over the finish line. They already have a lot to be proud of,” Agassi said about American players. “I think Ben is probably the rawest out of all of them, meaning the most upside.
“What would I tell Ben? Ben Shelton is an incredible athlete, he is a boss out there. Power that is just insane, movement that is insane, competitive spirit that is insane. He has hands when he comes forward. He has pretty much everything that he needs, but he treats – and I don’t want to be critical – but he treats every point as a one-off.
“If I had to sum it up and talk Lehman’s terms. I would say he approaches matches with the right objective, which is to be disruptive, but it’s not the main objective. He thinks mixing it up every point is incredibly disruptive and it is, but it is mostly to himself.
“I would argue with him that he needs to value himself more than that. He has a baseline game that can be imposing. He needs to understand what that is. He needs to bring it to the table full stop and then if somebody is answering that bell then he needs to be disruptive to remind them that he can do other things.
“But he tries to string together a match by winning a lot of one off points, and he can do it, which is prolonging that learning curve so if you ask me what I would do I would sit down with him and tell him not to do that.”
Where is Ben Shelton playing next?
Shelton will now try and return to winning ways on clay, where he will begin at the Monte Carlo Masters.
Clay is not the world number 14’s best surface, with Shelton’s powerful serve significantly less effective on the dirt.
Despite having a negative win-loss record on the surface, Shelton did win a clay court title in Houston last year, but has elected not to defend his title in 2025.
As a result he will drop 250 points from his ranking, before making only his second appearance at the Monte Carlo Masters tournament.
Shelton missed the tournament last year, and is still seeking his first win after losing his only previous match to Grigor Dimitrov in 2023.
Following the event in Monte Carlo, Shelton will then head to clay court tournaments in Munich, Madrid and Rome, before Roland Garros gets underway.
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