AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 22, 2026

Ben Shelton

Press Conference

B. SHELTON/D. Sweeny

6-3, 6-2, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to the press conference of Ben Shelton. First of all, congrats, Ben. Back into the third round with straight sets. How does it feel?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, it feels great. Not an easy match today, but I was able to stay focused and get it done in three sets.

I feel good about the direction that my level is going and, yeah, just looking forward to another match here.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. I actually wanted to ask you about your YouTube channel. The new episode dropped yesterday. Just the decision to make it, and the reception and how it's all come together.

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I've had, you know, a lot of help. A lot of it is not me. So, yeah, I've had a great team working on that, you know, between my agency, WME, and you know, the production company that I've been working with.

It's been pretty easy for me just to sit back and watch the magic happen. So I've kind of been excited to be able to tell my story a little bit and have people see, especially in this episode, some of the off-court stuff, the behind the scenes, in the offseason, away from tournament life.

Yeah, that's what I was most excited about, and I was pretty happy with the way that it turned out.

Q. In a world where you have Twitch streamers, like, streaming basically every second of their life, how much do you want to show of yourself on YouTube?

BEN SHELTON: I think it depends, right? At certain times I'm, like, Hey, I don't want to do anything today. At certain times I'm, like, yeah, I think it would be really cool to have a camera there.

It's important for me. Like, my camera guy, he's a good friend. He's like a fly on the wall. You don't even notice that he's there sometimes. He gets clips, and I'm not -- I didn't even realize he was recording.

For me, it works perfectly that way. If I was, like, traveling around with a big crew with a bunch of, like, equipment and big cameras, that's not something I would be comfortable with, but we've found a way to do it with the minimal amount of people and still make it look good.

So that's kind of why I agreed to it.

Q. The last few months you've also been big on TikTok. I'm curious, how comfortable are you at dancing on camera?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I get dragged into that every once in a while (smiling). Yeah, I think I'm good at following direction and whatever dances that Trinity wants to do. I don't do every one, but I feel like I do a good bit of them when she asks me to. It's not my thing, but... (laughter).

Q. You play Vacherot next, and obviously it's somebody who you never would have thought would be seeded at this tournament six months ago, but he did what he did in Shanghai and then kept it rolling. I'm curious what you make of that result that he had in Shanghai, what it says about the tour, and all the sort of careers that may have prolonged by giving lots of guys hope that their sort of fairy tale run could still be out there, and how do you approach him as an opponent?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I think it just shows that, you know, the game of tennis is very mental, and the level difference between guys who are playing challengers to the top of the world, it's not massive.

I played him in one of the early challengers I played, and we had an absolute war. I think I beat him 5 or 6 in the third. Even since he was in college, he's always been a problem.

I'm not shocked to see him, you know, in the top 100 and having great results on the tour. I think that he has a lot of weapons. I think he's great physically. I think he's a tough competitor. Yeah, I think it's a great third-round matchup.

So I'm looking forward to it. Obviously the first time that we're playing on the main tour and a college matchup, SEC matchup. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.

Q. In some of the past slams you've, like, made that jump from playing a certain level player and then all of a sudden you're playing Sinner or Alcaraz. I'm sort of curious, what is that jump like? Then what have you learned, do you think, about how you can do it better?

BEN SHELTON: Yeah, I think it depends, you know. Here I've always had tough first-round matchups. Like, I've played Nakashima in the first round last year. I played Humbert in the first round this year, and it's guys who not only are very good but are very dangerous on a live hard court.

Obviously as you go through the tournament, the matches are going to get tougher, because the guys are more and more in form, but I also feel that, like, when you get to the quarterfinals, it doesn't matter, or even the fourth round, quarterfinals, semifinals, it doesn't matter really who you are playing or what their ranking says, because you get to a quarterfinals of a slam, that means you've definitely beat some people and you're feeling pretty confident in your game.

I think that you run into guys that are playing at a very high level, playing some of their best tennis when you get there, and certainly every matchup is different. You know, going from a quarters playing somebody to Sinner in a semis, that's a different, you know, problem to deal with, but I think that that's kind of just the normal being out on tour. You have so many different matchups, and you have to bring something different to every match.

Yeah, obviously, it's a little bit different feel when you are playing the two-time defending champ or No. 1 player in the world.

Q. Here they've got the coaching boxes closer to players and stuff. How do you find that? And, in general, do you talk to your team about what you want match-to-match, mid-match or is it kind of unspoken?

BEN SHELTON: We do most of our prep pretty early in advance of the match, so there's not a huge amount of strategizing and coaching going on through the match. Small corrections, small tactical or technical corrections throughout the match, but I think that we have a pretty good system.

My coach, my dad, knows me pretty well, and at this point we have a good enough relationship that he kind of knows what I need and when I need it, and he knows when to not say anything and just kind of let me do my thing. He knows when he needs to say something and get me back on track.

Q. Are you someone that wants different things match to match? Are there some matches where you kind of really want pumping up and other matches you're, like, actually just kind of be quieter?

BEN SHELTON: No, I'm not crazy particular. I think that my team does a great job of kind of just reciprocating energy. So if I'm pretty locked in and not saying much, they're not going to be screaming at me, Come on, hey! They're just quiet claps or fist pumps, or whatever it is. But if I'm showing a lot of emotion, positive emotion, then they're going to give that back to me.

Q. Ben, I wanted to ask you about the players ranked between, say, 3 to, say, 15, if you feel all of you guys are about the same level and, you know, anyone can win on that day? What really is the difference between you guys and maybe, well, the top two?

BEN SHELTON: That's a very specific range. What about No. 16? 16th seed, you just -- no (laughter). What do you have against Karen Khachanov (laughter)?

No, I think that for me rankings don't always tell, you know, the current form or the level of a player, and I've always had that burned into my head since being a kid that rankings were never a focus.

Obviously when you are in juniors, it doesn't really matter what you're ranked. I guess there's a few more incentives and implications of your ranking on the ATP Tour, but for me, it's tough to really -- there's a lot of times that I've played certain guys, and I wasn't even sure where they were ranked at the time.

You know, I played Cabolli, who I looked after and was 24 in the world, but it felt on that day like he was, you know, a top-15 player. There's just plenty of examples. So I would say that that's something that I look at less.

For me, it's more the eye test, and I know depending on certain tournament, certain surface, what you're going to get from a certain guy has nothing to do with the number next to his name.