Ben Shelton, the 23-year-old American tennis player, is playing it pretty cool. It’s a hot-as-hell day in Mason, a suburban city in Southern Ohio that hosts the Cincinnati Open, and, as Shelton shakes hands on an outdoor terrace wearing a plain black tee and spiral-seamed track pants, one can’t help but think he’s on the brink of becoming tennis’ next big celebrity.
A galvanizing—and sometimes polarizing—player, he’s expressive, loud, and brash on the court, but he has also matured of late; where once he cockily mimicked the gesture of hanging up a phone (to signal he was “dialed in”) in victory, such antics have mostly dissipated. When you see his thundering serve, which can reach speeds of over 150 miles per hour, or his increasingly impressive mobility for being 6’4”, you understand where he gets that confidence.
A few hours earlier, Shelton took a private jet to Cincinnati from Montreal, where he’d just won the National Bank Open for the second year in a row (though in 2025, it was held in Toronto—the tournament alternates back and forth). The National Bank Open is notable: It’s one of nine annual Masters 1000 tournaments, which are just below the majors in terms of size and repute.
Shelton has clinched four titles alone in 2026, and seven in total across his burgeoning career, having gone pro in 2022. On top of these, he’s reached the semifinals of two Slams—the US Open in 2023 and the Australian Open in 2025—and, pre-tour, he also won the NCAA singles championship when he was a student at the University of Florida (in fact, Shelton was raised in Gainesville, as his father Bryan was the head tennis coach of the Gators before joining his son’s team full time).
Ben Shelton at the 2026 US Open.