Ben Shelton set an example to other top players after his singles disappointment in Houston last week.
Shelton won the Dallas Open in February, but has only won two of his five singles matches since then.
One of these victories came at the ATP 250 tournament in Houston, where Shelton won his first match of the clay court season to overtake Taylor Fritz to become American number one again.
Shelton would lose his next match to then world number 83 Thiago Agustin Tirante, but he still remained in Houston throughout the rest of the week.
Ben Shelton has shown that singles players should play more doubles
As well as playing in the singles draw at the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships in Houston, Shelton also played doubles alongside Ecuadorian Andres Andrade.
Shelton and Andrade made it all the way to the final, where they would beat the top seed pairing of Orlando Luz and Rafael Matos to win their first ATP doubles title.
This is the second doubles tournament that he has played this year, with Shelton claiming that competing with Aleksandar Kovacevic in Dallas helped him win the singles title.
Many top WTA players frequently enter both singles and doubles draws, and Shelton has proven that more players on the ATP Tour should also be doing the same.
Matchplay is the best way for players to test themselves, and for players like Shelton it gives the security of still having the opportunity to continue until the end of the week after suffering an early singles exit.
This feels even more relevant for Shelton in Houston, as it was his first tournament of the clay court season, giving him a better chance to adapt to the surface ahead of bigger events in Madrid, Rome and ultimately the French Open.
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Even Jannik Sinner is playing more doubles recently
While Shelton has really shown the power of singles playing doubles by winning the title, he is not the only top 10 ATP player to do so.
Jannik Sinner is targeting Carlos Alcaraz’s world number one ranking, but his focus has not solely been on singles recently.
At Indian Wells, Sinner played with Reilly Opelka, and he is also playing doubles at the Monte Carlo Masters.
Sinner is playing with Zizou Bergs at the Monte Carlo Masters, and they have already won their first match at the tournament.
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The four-time Grand Slam singles champion is not the only big singles name to be competing in doubles at the Monte Carlo Masters, with Alexander Zverev, Alex de Minaur and Casper Ruud also entering the event.
This appears to be a sensible decision for all these players, and is also good for getting more eyes on doubles matches as a whole.
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