Ben Shelton comfortable coming from behind at the US Open
Ben Shelton is high on confidence after securing his place in the US Open third round.
Shelton had a short second round outing against Dominic Thiem which saw him win a first set tiebreaker and take a 1-0 lead in the second before the Austrian retired ill.
The 20-year-old home hope had come from behind against Pedro Cachin in his first round outing and is now feeling good about his US Open form after some disappointing results on tour of late.
Shelton gave up a break to Thiem in that first set but almost immediately clawed it back which he put down to his experience in rallying from a set down.
“I think after the match with Cachin, I kind of showed that I was comfortable coming from behind, dealing with some adversity, tough things in the matches I play,” Shelton told a press conference.
“Being down 5-0 and losing the first set 6-1 in my first round. Obviously going down a break early in the set, or going down 4-2, then getting it right back, I thought that I did a great job again staying composed, competing, turning the switch on when I needed to, playing points smart, the right way, being aggressive at the right times.
“I felt like things were flowing today, especially towards the end of the set in the tiebreaker. I kind of found my groove.”
Shelton confessed that he is guilty of watching the serve speed displays in the stadiums and tries to hit the ball faster. However, from a strategy point of view he likes to mix up his serves to keep an opponent guessing and will tailor his approach to his opponent.
“Yeah, my dad gets mad at me when I chase the numbers on the score clock, the mph’s, because once I hit one at 140 [mph], I’m going to try to beat it on the next one, 145. That’s something we go back and forth about,” Shelton confessed.
But, yeah, I think that my serving strategy changes each match. But the overall consistency of what I do on my serve stays the same. I try to mix things up and keep guys off balance. I thought I did a great job today of changing up speeds and spins. I didn’t feel at any point he had a bead on my serve.
I’d say that my biggest problem in my service games is that I break myself sometimes. It’s not only people hitting return winners against me or getting into net, hitting volley winners. It’s a lot of errors coming off my racquet.
I felt like lately I’ve been doing a better job of kind of managing my service games, knowing when to pull the trigger and when to pull back a little bit.
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