Ben Shelton has soared into the second round of the Australian Open, with the American once more relying heavily on his superb serving.
Roger Federer’s former coach Paul Annacone thinks Shelton can be ‘more solid’, with the 22-year-old currently 20th in the ATP rankings.
Shelton was certainly tested in his opener against fellow American Brandon Nakashima in Melbourne, but ultimately won in straight sets.
The Australian Open 21st seed beat Nakashima 7-6(3), 7-5, 7-5 to set up a second round meeting with Pablo Carreno Busta.
It is just a third Melbourne Grand Slam for the American, who was a quarter-finalist in 2023 before a third round exit last year.
Ben Shelton wants to improve serve accuracy after looking at ATP stats
A much longer stay will be the goal this time around, although Shelton has admitted one area of his serving can be improved upon.
Asked in his post-match press conference if he looks at issues such as return numbers with his dad and coach Bryan Shelton, he replied: “Yeah, I think it’s real interesting to see at the end of the year, because for me, just in one match, it’s not very telling.
“You know, you can play, like you said, [Giovanni] Mpetshi Perricard. Oh man, I’m returning so bad. No. He aced you 36 times.
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“There’s a lot of different circumstances. Speed of the court, conditions, sometimes it’s real hot outside, and you are throwing in the towel in some of the return games just to get through it once you are up a break.
“But at the end of the year I like to sit down, me and my dad and another guy that I work with, kind of look at the stats and see which areas I’m doing really well in and which areas I have room to improve in and which areas I have improved in.
“For me, it’s important that those good areas stay good, that my first-serve percentage stays where it’s at, and my winning percentage on first and second serve stay where it’s at. But I also need to get more accurate with my serves.
“In almost every serve category I’m at the top, but my accuracy or how far I am from my targets is actually below the tour average.
“There’s a lot of things that, I don’t know how they calculate it, but they figured it out. It’s stuff that I like to look at kind of when I’m wrapping up my year, but not things I dwell on during the season.”
What are Ben Shelton’s serve stats as he eyes strong Australian Open run?
Shelton wasn’t at his red-hot best with his serving against Nakashima, with the former hitting three double faults to go along with his 12 aces.
He recorded a first serve percentage of 60%, with first serve and second serve points won percentages of 74% and 64% respectively.
As for his return figures, Shelton posted tallies of 28% and 43% for first serve and second serve return points won respectively.
Looking at the bigger picture, the world number 20 currently ranks sixth in the ATP serve rating leaderboard with a figure of 294.5, just behind Jannik Sinner’s 295.6.
| Rank | Player | Serve rating | % 1st serve | % 1st serve points won | % 2nd serve points won | % service games won | Avg. aces/match | Avg. double faults/match |
| 1 | Sebastian Baez | 260.7 | 71.4% | 63.8% | 51.6% | 73.7% | 2.2 | 2.0 |
| 2 | Alexander Zverev | 299.1 | 71.0% | 76.9% | 54.2% | 89.8% | 9.5 | 2.3 |
| 3 | Dusan Lajovic | 268.0 | 70.1% | 67.4% | 50.7% | 78.4% | 2.5 | 1.1 |
| 4 | Ben Shelton | 294.5 | 68.8% | 75.7% | 54.6% | 89.2% | 9.5 | 3.3 |
| 5 | Pedro Martinez | 251.6 | 68.7% | 65.9% | 46.2% | 72.4% | 2.4 | 4.0 |
He does, however, climb up to fourth place in terms of percentage first serve (68.8%), and fifth for percentage service games won (89.2%).
Once ranked 13th in the world, Shelton has been tipped to break the top 10, although perhaps that will only be possible with the improvement that the American is eager to make.
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