AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 19, 2023

Ben Shelton

Press Conference

B. SHELTON/N. Jarry

7-6, 7-6, 7-5

THE MODERATOR: First of all, congratulations, Ben. Your first Grand Slam, out of the states, here in Australia. You got into the last 32. How do you feel now?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, it feels great. Definitely been a cool experience to be outside the U.S. so far. So I'm excited for what's to come and, yeah, grateful that I got the chance to come here.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. What has it been like to adjust to big stage, lots of people, like you said, outside the U.S.? What do you tell yourself, that a tennis court is a tennis court?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I definitely got some similar crowds at the US Open last year, so I kind of got used to that. And then playing college tennis, the crowds are a lot rowdier. They try to get in your head a lot more, and the cheering isn't as polite (laughing). In terms of dealing with crowds, I feel like I've done a pretty good job with that.

I think the hardest part was just dealing with the time change and getting my legs back and just how I felt. Obviously, it's my first trip out of the country, so I have never dealt with a time change more than three hours.

So I think it was the hardest part for me. Going from Adelaide the first week I didn't feel great, and I started feeling really good in the second week in Auckland, and now I think I'm starting to hit my stride.

Q. What would you say you're most pleased with so far about your play, and what is maybe the most surprising thing, or has anything surprised you so far in the matches so far here?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah. I think I surprised myself a little bit just how I've been pretty clutch in the tiebreakers, end of the sets, big moments. I've come up with the goods when I needed to in both matches.

Obviously, the first one was a tight five-setter, and that 10-point tiebreak I played really well. Both tiebreaks today to get me the two-set lead, I thought I played great as well. So I've been impressed with my ability to turn things up a notch when they really matter. So, yeah, I think the big-moment tennis for me has been really important.

Q. I was looking into your Wikipedia page, which is very trustful, and it said that the reason you didn't travel much especially when you were a junior is your father convinced you to not waste your time and money with traveling abroad. Is that true, and can you explain a little bit about why you didn't play many international tournaments?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I wasn't an amazing tennis player growing up. I focused on a lot of other sports, and I wasn't at the level that a lot of these guys were at 13, 14, 15, even all the way to 18.

And there was players inside of the U.S. that could challenge me and beat me every week, and I wasn't winning every single USTA tournament that I was playing.

So my dad's thoughts were I'm improving here, I'm not the best in the nation, and so there's not really a reason to go to a different country where, yeah, I probably would lose as well and learn a lot of the same things. So I think that that was one piece of it.

Then the other piece is that I went to normal public school all the way through senior year, so I didn't have as much leeway with missing classes, being able to be gone for long periods of time. The ITF schedule is much like the ATP schedule. The tournaments are weeks long rather than a USTA tournament I could play Saturday, Sunday, Monday, miss one day of school and be able to get back.

So I think those two things combined were kind of a couple of the reasons.

Q. Ben, all of a sudden you're playing this tournament for the first time. You're in the third round. And in the next round you could be playing someone ranked lower than you potentially, for instance, being down 2-1 sets. How do you balance being excited with where you are and thinking, oh, I might have an opportunity here to keep going?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I think that every match here is tough. You know, if you make the third round of a slam, the second round of a slam, I mean, even if you are just in the slam, you are playing at a pretty good level.

Obviously, for instance, playing Popyrin who has the home crowd behind him, so I think both matchups are tough matchups, and I would be looking forward do either one. Hopefully get to play on a big stadium court playing one of them.

So I'm looking forward to it. I'm not looking too far forward or worrying about who I'm going to play, but I'm just kind of taking it all in right now.

Q. A year ago this week you were playing a couple of dual matches in Texas. At that point I don't even think you were on first -- I know your ranking was good, but I think you were playing second, third. I think you lost it Aguilar that week. So when did something click in your game? Obviously you were playing great tennis at that point, but when did something click to go from where you were then to where you are now?

BEN SHELTON: I can't really tell you a moment where my game started to click. I definitely felt gradual improvements throughout the college season.

I think that I struggled a little bit towards the beginning of the year the first couple of matches, first round quallies in Adelaide and, yeah, my first two dual matches in Texas. I took a little while to kind of get my feet under me and really start hitting my stride, but I'm not sure if there was a moment where things clicked or it was just I knew that I was making gradual improvements in my game.

And I just started trusting myself more and more going into the summer. And the more that I competed at a higher level, I had more trust in myself to keep moving forward.

Q. Ben, you used "vamos" many times today. Was this because you were playing a Spanish speaker and a rival, you wanted to get into his mind, or it's just something that you use usually? You also posted an Instagram in Spanish. Why is that?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, so this is -- I had a few Spanish-speaking teammates on my team at Florida who are some of my best friends, and it kind of just became a thing for all of us on the University of Florida team.

That was what we said when we won points, "vamos." I've been saying it for years. Probably two years now that's kind of been my go-to on court. It didn't really have anything to do with who I was playing today.

If you watch my first round match, I was doing that a lot as well, and that's kind of why I posted the "vamos" because that's my kind of go-to line. Nothing to do with the guy that I was playing today, and I didn't mean any disrespect.