Of course, some of Shelton\u2019s boldness was just baked in.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur family is very conservative, and everything [Ben] wore had to be neon,\u201d Shelton\u2019s father and coach, Bryan, said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Aussie tennis fans will recall Shelton diving for balls in a sleeveless top, with sunset gradient, from the Federer-backed brand On. And while French fans may be more used to those shirts being covered in clay, the one constant is a kid who has a habit of standing out.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just wanted to do things differently,\u201d Bryan said. \u201cBut somewhere along the way, a little switch went off.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That switch was as much technical as it was mental. Shelton\u2019s one-wood is a 240km\/h-plus serve, but as the tour has collectively improved, the Atlanta native realised he needed more than raw power.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it used to be a crutch,\u201d he told the ATP. \u201cI spent a lot of time working on other parts of my game. I can go through a service game easily now with only second serves, which I could never have done before, and it’s just been my evolution as a player to not just rely on the serve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another piece of Shelton\u2019s evolution is a distinct American swagger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m saying I\u2019m dialled in,\u201d he told reporters when asked about the \u2018hang up the telephone\u2019 celebration he used at the 2023 US Open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Of course, some of Shelton\u2019s boldness was just baked in. \u201cOur family is very conservative, and everything [Ben]…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-308533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}