At the US Open, Ben Shelton is searching for the balance between acting like a pro, and being the excitable kid he is

EDITOR'S NOTE: On Sunday, Ben Shelton defeated Tommy Paul, 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, to reach his second Grand Slam quarterfinal of the season, and of his young career. We'll have more on the 20-year-old's victory on TENNIS.com; in the meantime, please read our feature on Shelton from Friday:

NEW YORK—Like most other pro tennis players of even modest renown, Ben Shelton is regularly mobbed by young autograph seekers as he walks around the grounds at tournaments. With the Georgia native, though, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between him and the teenagers sticking pens and oversize tennis balls in his face. Shelton is 20, but his broad smile, baby face, and penchant for practicing in sneakers without socks can make him look like he’s just another (very tall) kid hanging out with his friends on summer vacay.

Shelton sounds younger than his years when he opens his mouth, too. The “Yeahhhh!!!” he unleashes after winning a point is probably the highest-pitched of anyone’s on the ATP tour, but that doesn’t keep him from letting it out every chance he gets, as loudly as he can. This is Shelton’s first full year playing on the men’s circuit, but he’s not quite ready to act like a grown-up. He would only be a junior, after all, if he had stayed at the University of Florida.

“I feel like when I try to put myself in this, ‘OK, let’s be professional, be quiet, have a stern look on my face the whole time I’m playing, it takes away from some of my creativity on the court, some of the energy or explosive movement that I like to do when I’m playing,” Shelton said this week.

“The college game is much more obnoxious, people are screaming at all times. It’s not as much of a gentleman's sport as it is out on tour. I’ve been kind of trying to find that balance.”

Shelton has been trying to find a lot of balances since he joined the tour last summer. Between aggression and consistency on court, but also between work and life off of it. He was used to hanging out with a big group of teammates, but on tour you mostly go it alone.

"I think it's a little bit more lonely than being in college,” Shelton said. “You travel with a big team, all your friends. Always staying in a hotel room with somebody else. Being out on tour, you have a lot more time to yourself alone in your hotel room, more time to think about things.”

He was used to having a tennis season, and then having an off-season. But the pro-tennis season goes every week for 11 months of the year.

“It seems like the tour is always going till December,” he said. “It’s just go, go, go, go. I would say I assumed, before I was out here on tour, that there were more down weeks or weeks when there weren’t tournaments.”

Shelton was also used to playing virtually all of his matches on good-old American hard courts. In the pros, you can’t avoid European clay or British grass. He came to them with virtually no practice or prior experience at the lower levels of the tour.

“It’s like, no, I’m jumping in right away to Masters 1000s, a 500 at the Queen’s Club that’s as strong as a Masters 1000,” Shelton said of his European sojourn. "I’m playing a guy who’s almost Top 10 in the world in the second round.”

Credit Shelton for making that sojourn and playing in foreign cities almost every week through the spring and summer. He went 4-8 on clay in Europe, which was a big comedown from his quarterfinal run at the Australian Open. But you have to think he’ll be helped by committing so early to taking his lumps and learning. He also played a lot of doubles with a lot of different partners (he's playing the doubles and mixed events at Flushing Meadows) and seemed to find his place among the U.S. players.

“I kind of had to keep my perspective and know that, OK, it’s not like I’m supposed to go out here and win every single match I play just because I did something good early in the season,” Shelton said.

Shelton came to New York with a 12-20 record in 2023, and a ranking of 47, down 12 from his career high after Australia. On Thursday, he came out to the Grandstand to watch the end of the epic between Michael Mmoh and John Isner, who was playing his final singles match. On Friday he was back in the Grandstand serving a lot like, well, Isner.

Shelton has the livest arm on tour, and his knee bend on his service motion is so deep it looks like he’s imitating Charles Atlas holding the earth in place with his hand. He swings with so much youthful abandon, on his serve and every other shot, it looks like he’s going to come out of his shoes. Against Aslan Karatsev, Shelton slammed down 26 aces in 17 service games (compared to two for his opponent) and won 20 of 21 service points in the first set.

“It was probably my best serving day ever,” Shelton said after his 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 win, while wondering if Isner had left a few of his aces behind for him in the Grandstand.

Next, Shelton will continue to try to finish his rookie season on an up note against Tommy Paul.

“I’m ready for a war,” Shelton says.

U.S. tennis lost its greatest server this week, but we may be seeing the next one arriving before our eyes. But don’t call Shelton a servebot. He’s got too much high-energy athleticism for that, and his hooking, whipping topspin forehand is too big a shot for that.

Most important, he has too much fun out there for that.