PARIS : World number 13 Ben Shelton is confident he is cutting the distance dividing him to top players despite his loss to defending French Open champion Carlos Alcaraz in the fourth round on Sunday.
Shelton, 22, pushed the world number two to four sets and though the Spaniard proved to be too good on the day, there were still plenty of positive takeaways.
“For me, this is the closest that I’ve felt in a match against him, and the most pressure that I thought that I’ve applied, the most comfortable that I felt in the baseline exchanges, the best I’ve hit my open-stance backhand when he’s put pressure there,” he told a press conference.
Shelton has now lost all three matches against Alcaraz but Sunday’s was the first where he took a set.
“In that way, it also being a clay court is kind of ironic, arguably his better surface, and arguably my least-experienced surface.”
Shelton had never before made it into the fourth round and he was one of eight Americans – five women and three men – to reach that stage in Paris, breaking a 40-year-old record.
“There are a lot of positives to take from that because I feel like my game is improving a lot,” he said.
Shelton also lost to world number one Jannik Sinner at the Australian Open semi-final in January but that gap to the top has been closing, he said.
He trails the Italian 5-1 in their head-to-head.
“I don’t want to be disrespectful and just be ‘I’m right there’ but I feel like I am close to starting to win some matches like that, give guys a run for their money more often, and have these deeper runs more consistently.”
“Not two bad guys to lose to. Those two matches I’ve lost at Slams this year, I consider myself a really good Grand Slam match player.
“Hopefully I can continue to improve and take that next step, because that’s where I want to be.”
