ATP Player of the Year, No. 4: Ben Shelton

This week, Steve Tignor will reveal his ATP Matches of the Year, and the TENNIS.com editors will reveal our ATP Players of the Year. The WTA editions will begin Monday, December 8.

Shelton's 2025, by the Numbers

• 40-24: Overall win-loss record
• 13-4: Grand Slam win-loss record (AO SF, RG 4R, W QF, USO 3R)
• 1: Title (Toronto)
• 1: Runner-ups (Munich)
• 9: Year-end ranking

🖥️📲 Stream Shelton's best matches of 2025 on the Tennis Channel App!

The Story of the Season

At the start of the year, Shelton was an athlete and a star. By the end, he was something more: A player.

With his 6’4’’ frame and live left arm, he’d always had a lethal serve-forehand punch. With his extroverted personality, he was a big-stage natural. But he lacked the consistency to succeed week in, week out.

Through April, that pattern appeared destined to hold. Shelton began with a trip to the Australian Open semifinals, before muddling through the spring. But something clicked on the least likely of surfaces: clay. He made the Munich final, and pushed Carlos Alcaraz at Roland Garros. The slower courts, he said, helped him picked his spots to attack.

That set the stage for the Summer of Ben: Shelton reached his first Wimbledon quarterfinal, won his first Masters 1000, in Toronto, and climbed to a career-high No. 5.

The 23-year-old credited a few things for his leap:

He watched more film.

“Seeing the plays you want to make before you make them, that’s been a big one for me.”

He leaned into his strengths.

“I feel like I have a good grasp now on the things that really work for me.”

He sharpened his return.

“I want to be one of the best returners in the world. I’m on my way.”

As that last statement attests, Shelton has never lacked for swag. In 2025, he backed it up. He’s an athlete, a player, and a bigger star than ever.—Steve Tignor

What's to Come in 2026?

In the men’s tennis hierarchy, Shelton ended 2025 smack dab in the middle of two tiers: clearly above most of the field, but still hitting the Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner ceiling. The American’s in-between status presents him with the dual challenge of not only looking to upset an increasingly cemented duopoly, but also doing all he can to remain in front of the so-called second line.

Essential to that mission will be staying healthy. Shelton came to Flushing Meadows this summer looking like a title contender, but his US Open campaign was cut short by a sudden shoulder injury. Though he returned to action in time to clinch a maiden ATP Finals berth, he went 0-3 in round-robin play, and dropped from No. 5 to No. 9 after one disappointing week.

In addition to regaining his fighting shape, there’s still the mental hurdle of Sincaraz, who lead Shelton by a combined 11-1 in head-to-head matches.

“If you want to win a big title these days, that's who you've got to go through,” conceded Shelton at the US Open.

“I think that, you know, for me, I get too far ahead of myself, and next thing you know you trip over your own feet and you don't even give yourself a chance to get started,” he added, aiming to focus more on creating opportunities to play big matches instead of fixating on specific opponents.

Any big match involving Shelton is guaranteed to generate headlines, but 2026 could be the year he becomes the headliner.—David Kane