AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 24, 2026

Ben Shelton

Press Conference

B. SHELTON/V. Vacherot

6-4, 6-4, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to the press conference of Ben Shelton. First of all, congrats, Ben. Another straight-sets win to get you back into the second week of Australian Open. Are you pleased with your level?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I think that I'm doing a lot of great things on the court. I think that there's small things that if I'm picky, I can continue to do better throughout the tournament, which is what you need to do to be competitive at the back end of majors.

So for me, I take a lot of confidence out of the performance today and a few things that I need to work on and definitely want to improve.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. I've just spoken to your opponent today who was pretty blown away with your level. You've had good results at a lot of Grand Slams. If you compare your form right now through three rounds to some of those others, how does it compare? Do you feel this is maybe the best you've played so far?

BEN SHELTON: No. I think that, you know, the best that I've played at a slam was up until I got injured at the US Open last summer. I think that this is probably second, but to be in the form that I'm in as early as it is in the year is really encouraging.

I think that there's a lot of things that I am doing really well, improvements that I made, and maybe small pieces that I'm doing better than I was doing last summer.

But in terms of just being in a flow state, completely confident, and knowing what I'm doing on the court, all the nuances of return of serve, using continental skills on the stretch, defense to offense, I was probably just in a little bit better rhythm with all that stuff last summer.

But I think that I'm serving much better now. I think that the way that I'm able to flatten out the forehand and change speeds on the backhand with the slice, topspin, and flat balls, I've seen improvements, for sure.

Q. The hat, in regards to winning an SEC dual match today?

BEN SHELTON: No, I've worn this, I guess, first time in press, but I've been wearing it a lot of days this week, but yeah, I guess it was an SEC matchup today.

There's so many college guys in the draws now. It's, like, I guess Spizz now is SEC too, if you count Texas. They weren't in the SEC when we were there, but you got a lot of SEC guys out here: Walton, Diallo, Vacherot.

Yeah, probably many more dual matches to be played in my career.

Q. I was working on a story last night about Stan Wawrinka having a much better winning percentage in best-of-five than best-of-three. Your numbers are much bigger in this. You have a huge delta win percentage. I think you're 18% higher winning percentage in best-of-five than best-of-three. I'm curious if you knew about that, and what do you chalk it up to? Are there things you need to work on for best-of-three? It's a big gap for you.

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I think I play my best tennis at these big tournaments. I think that the format and then also the atmosphere factor into that.

For me, playing five sets, you have so much time. You can be free at times. You can swing free. Yeah, it feels like you have enormous amount of time to figure things out out there on the court. There's no rush.

So, me personally, I like that feeling. Like you said, I think there's a lot to work on, especially taking it to best-of-three matches. That's just the next progression and evolution for me.

But I think also, at the same time, you have great examples of guys in the game right now who are maybe a year older than me or a year younger than me with Alcaraz and Sinner but who were both kind of out on tour while I was still in college, you know. They started around 2020, 2021, but if you look at their win percentages at slams, I saw something about Alcaraz yesterday that he won, like, 87 out of his first 100 matches at slams. I think it's a ridiculous stat, a record or tied a record.

So I think you have some good guys to chase after in that regard. Obviously big-time players, you're going to see a lot of stats like that.

Q. You ended up playing under the roof, but today or just in general, when you know you're going to be playing on a day where it's super hot, do you tweak anything with, like, your racquet or with what you eat, what you drink, what you wear? Do you make any adjustments?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I mean, I think that you definitely want to be light with what you eat and drink a lot. That's kind of what I did last night, anticipating possibly playing outside in 100-degree heat.

It's something that I'm used to, but it's not comfortable for anybody. It's a very uncomfortable feeling playing out there in those temperatures.

Like you said, I ended up playing indoors, but there's, yeah, a lot of things you've got to factor in. For me, usually I'd probably go up a few pounds in tension. I didn't today, but I always have a couple racquets, just in case, at a tighter tension with me.

I think that you got to be -- on a day like today, you got to be prepared for everything, because you are either playing in 70-degree, room-temperature, perfect serving conditions, or you're trying to stay out of the sun and stay alive out there.

Q. Does it play on your mind the day before? Obviously you're taking the preparations. Are you preoccupied by it or fairly relaxed about it?

BEN SHELTON: I wouldn't say I'm ever fairly relaxed at slams. I would say that the nerves and the nervous feeling helps me. It's something that I've kind of learned to lean into at these bigger tournaments.

For me, I just trust myself, I trust my preparation, and I know that whether we think we're going to be outdoors or we go indoors, yeah, I'm playing a guy who serves great, but my serve is not too bad either.

If we do play outside, yeah, I've got to deal with the heat for five sets, but I've played a lot more extended slam matches than a lot of guys on tour. I mean, I know that I'm still young, but I have a lot of experience at the slams. Maybe that's a lie if you look at the tour average, I don't know, but that's how I feel or that's what I trick myself into.

That kind of gives me confidence.

Q. You seem like you're in a pretty good groove here so far. We're coming off the offseason. I'm just wondering, in the time when you can prepare yourself physically and strength and conditioning and tweak on some skills, do you dedicate any of that to mental preparation, to mental skill, to mental training?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I think that the way that I've practiced every day is mental training in itself, dealing with pressure in practice, whether it's playing a practice set against someone I don't want to lose to or my coach putting on a little bit extra pressure that day or dealing with stuff physically and a lot more soreness because I'm on the court two times and in the gym as well each day.

So I think that there's a lot of mental work that isn't exactly mental work. You wouldn't classify it as, yeah, I'm going to go out and work on my mental today, but I think the better and better you get at handling those type of things in a training session, the more that you can stay calm and the longer you can stay out there on the court and the more you can ante up and come back in the afternoon after a long morning session and give 100%, I think just helps when you stack it up in the grand scheme of things.

Q. Thoughts on your next possible match? They haven't played yet. What are your thoughts on either guy?

BEN SHELTON: I think a great matchup either way. A cool matchup. Guys who have experience being in slams, in the deep part of slams. A slam finalist and a slam champion. Does he have multiple, Cilic?

Q. One, US Open finals, yeah.

BEN SHELTON: So, yeah, I think that speaks for itself, and just a matchup that I'm really looking forward to either way.

I think that when you get to this stage in the tournament, every matchup becomes more and more exciting, because, you know, everybody is playing well, everybody is a tough matchup. You get to play so many different styles of players throughout the two weeks.

Obviously two guys with very different styles and contrasting games, and I'll be looking forward to watching that one for sure.