{"id":50818,"date":"2025-08-07T16:41:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T16:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/50818\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T16:41:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T16:41:03","slug":"ben-shelton-has-just-done-something-for-the-first-time-since-andy-roddick-in-2004-by-reaching-the-canadian-open-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/50818\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Shelton has just done something for the first time since Andy Roddick in 2004 by reaching the Canadian Open final"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ben Shelton has reached new ground in his professional tennis career.<\/p>\n<p>After forgoing his final year of college to turn pro in 2022, the same year he entered his first <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/tag\/us-open\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">US Open<\/a> as a 19-year-old, and it a decision that has paid off.<\/p>\n<p>Three years later Shelton is competing at the <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/tag\/canadian-open\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Canadian Open<\/a> and he has now advanced to his first Masters 1000 final.<\/p>\n<p>He has a chance to win the biggest title of his career so far and it comes at an ideal time with the US Open on the horizon.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2228003717-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Ben Shelton celebrates winning a point against Ben Shelton at the 2025 National Bank Open\" class=\"wp-image-317644\" \/>Photo by Julian Avram\/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesBen Shelton is the youngest American Masters 1000 finalist since Andy Roddick in 2004<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/tag\/ben-shelton\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Shelton<\/a> came through successive final set tiebreak victories against Brandon Nakashima and Flavio Cobolli in Canada, and he has not looked back since.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/ben-shelton-gives-his-thoughts-on-alex-de-minaur-and-discloses-what-he-always-does-in-their-practice-matches\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shelton snapped Alex de Minaur\u2019s eight-match win streak<\/a> in straight sets, before Shelton beat <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/tag\/taylor-fritz\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Taylor Fritz<\/a> 6-4, 6-3 to advance to his first Masters 1000 final.<\/p>\n<p>At the age of 22, Shelton has now become the youngest American to reach a Masters 1000 final since <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/tag\/andy-roddick\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Roddick<\/a> in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>In that year, Roddick reached the Miami Open final, which he went on to win, in addition to the Canadian Open.<\/p>\n<p>Roddick faced his kryptonite <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/tag\/roger-federer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Roger Federer<\/a> in the final, and the 20-time Grand Slam champion eased to a 7-5, 6-3 victory.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2228873236-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Ben Shelton lunges for a ball while playing Taylor Fritz at the 2025 ATP Masters 1000 National Bank Open\" class=\"wp-image-317648\" \/>Photo by Matthew Stockman\/Getty ImagesBen Shelton can achieve new ranking career-high if he wins the Canadian Open<\/p>\n<p>Shelton not only has a chance to win his first Masters 1000 title in Canada, but there is also something else at stake.<\/p>\n<p>If Shelton becomes a Masters 1000 champion, he will rise to a career-high ranking of number six, leapfrogging <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/tag\/novak-djokovic\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Novak Djokovic<\/a> in the process.<\/p>\n<p>Shelton has the tricky task of defeating <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/karen-khachanov-pinpoints-the-two-crucial-errors-alexander-zverev-made-in-their-canadian-open-semi-final\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Karen Khachanov, who overcame Alexander Zverev<\/a> in the semi-finals after saving a match point.<\/p>\n<p>But if there is one thing about Shelton, he is fearless and has expressed plenty of confidence in his game throughout the Canadian Open.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen so many big improvements in my game this week, that\u2019s what I\u2019m most happy about, how I\u2019m executing, how little I\u2019m hesitating, how I\u2019m returning,\u201d Shelton said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of things to be proud about and beating two Top 10 guys back to back is huge for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Shelton has reached new ground in his professional tennis career. After forgoing his final year of college&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[17739,64,63,21693,11230,85,747],"class_list":["post-50818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-andy-roddick","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-shelton","tag-canadian-open","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50818","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=50818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}