{"id":72448,"date":"2026-09-13T04:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T04:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/72448\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T04:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T04:48:10","slug":"ben-sheltons-dad-bryan-also-has-a-first-since-arthur-ashe-stat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/72448\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Shelton&#8217;s Dad Bryan Also Has A &#8220;First Since Arthur Ashe&#8221; Stat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben Shelton Has Done Something Not Done Since Arthur Ashe \u2013 His Father Bryan Also Has That Distinction<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Randy Walker<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">@TennisPublisher<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben Shelton has done something that hasn\u2019t been done before since Arthur Ashe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His father Bryan already has that distinction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Ben Shelton is the first black American man to reach the U.S. Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972, you can look back at an accomplishment his father Bryan completed in 1991 that was also something not done since Ashe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back on July 14, 1991, as documented in my book \u201cOn This Day In Tennis History\u201d (for sale and download here <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0942257421?lv=shuf&amp;bestFormat=true&amp;rsd=bzcLgdWQ%2Fjnk5QLRar6i2nSd%2B9e%2FIWlHS1AlJcI7LV5X9n%2FtCbOmNxQtWey6bjfbUdCRYBWsSvp2XaRUzFLUXnSICSEJ7VBmz667Ai7DCgpgzQ%3D%3D&amp;edk=AQIDAHi1lw%2FM8UbbSMD9ScOOFEmBMHMthHeEhqDaQYPJUAX3jQFyLhjdV0SizxbkDYwdlWE9AAAAfjB8BgkqhkiG9w0BBwagbzBtAgEAMGgGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMWZ3SX%2FoTMUr5UovOAgEQgDsTKU3ZGSMF8cP%2Bz1EsJHPXmzHG5qVx%2BXCtWXkSTyxX9iL1t3JAOk7SwkZ1UOhnbMQXDFmgYXBOQLWaSw%3D%3D&amp;social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_mwn_dp_XASY9EQYZYCWHFYPS0JE&amp;channelId=704&amp;ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_mwn_dp_XASY9EQYZYCWHFYPS0JE&amp;plpRedirect=mhFallback\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">On This Day in Tennis History: A Day-by-Day Anthology of Anecdotes and Historical Happenings: Walker, Randy: 9780942257427: Amazon.com: Books<\/a>) Shelton won his first ATP singles title at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in Newport, R.I. on the grass courts of the Newport Casino in Newport, R.I. The win gave him the distinction of being the first black man to win an ATP Tour singles title since Arthur Ashe won the title in Los Angeles in 1978. The description of Papa Shelton\u2019s achievement is see below, as excerpted from the book.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1991 \u2013 Bryan Shelton<a\/><a\/>, a former All-American from Georgia Tech University ranked No. 147, becomes the first African-American man to win a singles tournament since Arthur Ashe <a\/><a\/>won in Los Angeles in 1978, defeating Argentina\u2019s Javier Frana 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the final of the Hall of Fame Championships in Newport, R.I. Says Shelton, \u201cIt\u2019s exciting and it\u2019s an achievement I\u2019m proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shelton returned to Newport the following year and won the title again. The Newport titles were the only two titles that the older Shelton would win in his career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Shelton is the first black man since Ashe to reach the U.S. Open final, he will look to become the first black American man to win a major title and the U.S. Open since Ashe at Wimbledon in 1975 and Ashe again at the U.S. Open in 1968. The last black American to reach a major singles final came 30 years ago when MaliVai Washington reached the singles final at Wimbledon, where he lost to Richard Krajicek.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"936\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/BryanSheltonGraphic-1024x936.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29647 lazyload\"\/><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"936\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/BryanSheltonGraphic.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29647\"  \/>Discover more from World Tennis Magazine<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:10px;font-size:15px\">Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Shelton Has Done Something Not Done Since Arthur Ashe \u2013 His Father Bryan Also Has That Distinction&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[567,419,3638,463],"class_list":["post-72448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ben-shelton","tag-arthur-ashe","tag-ben-shelton","tag-bryan-shelton","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}