Ben Shelton highlights two American ATP players as the best tennis minds: ‘He may fool you’

When asked about the best tennis minds in the sport, Shelton highlighted a few familiar names.

“Tough question… there’s a lot,” said Shelton. “Everyone is sharp in their own way, like you know, Taylor Fritz has a great tennis mind, and he knows what he has to do to win matches, and he’s very objective and he knows why he lost matches as soon as he walks off the court.

“You can see him talking through it during the match with his box. He’s not getting coached as much during the match. He’s just talking through and making adjustments and telling them what’s going on. I think he has a great tennis mind.”

Shelton also gave high praise to Frances Tiafoe, noting how quickly Tiafoe makes decisions on court.

“I think Frances Tiafoe has a great tennis mind, and him in full flight, the decisions that he’s making on the fly, his processing is so quick, but how he sees the game is really impressive. And he may fool you by, you know, the laughing and joking around all the time, but he’s a really sharp tennis mind, so I know maybe that sounds biased because those are two Americans.”

To avoid mentioning only Americans, Shelton included Roger Federer in his list, revealing that the Swiss great’s ability to simplify the game stood out to him.

“If I had to put one other guy in there, uh I mean, I’ve talked to Roger a few times, you know, just about the game, and what kind of stuck out to me is how simple he put it, how simple he thought about things.

“He’s watching tennis all the time. You know, no matter the level. So one, the commitment to, you know, just the game and love for the game and seeing that all the time, and then the way that he was able to like simplify the game, dumb it down, not make it more complicated than it has to be. I thought was really impressive.”

Ben Shelton’s record against Lorenzo Sonego

Shelton has continued his impressive Grand Slam record and will look to use his own strong mentality to help reach his first Wimbledon quarter-final.

Standing in his way of doing that is Italian Lorenzo Sonego, who Shelton will now have played at all three majors this year.

The winner of the match between Shelton and Sonego will reach their first Wimbledon quarter-final, where they will face either Jannik Sinner or Grigor Dimitrov.