{"id":25406,"date":"2025-04-16T18:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T18:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/25406\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T18:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T18:14:08","slug":"ben-shelton-describes-what-he-finds-weird-about-clay-court-tennis-after-winning-his-opening-match-at-the-munich-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/25406\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Shelton describes what he finds \u2018weird\u2019 about clay court tennis after winning his opening match at the Munich Open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Ben Shelton explained why he is still trying to learn about playing clay court tennis.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The American started his campaign on the dirt at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/monte-carlo-masters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Monte Carlo Masters<\/a>, but lost in the opening round to former finalist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/news\/alejandro-davidovich-fokina-publicly-apologises-for-what-he-did-in-win-over-jack-draper-at-the-monte-carlo-masters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alejandro Davidovich Fokina<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 22-year-old has since travelled to Germany to compete in the Munich Open, and he began his campaign with a victory.<\/p>\n<p>But Shelton had to do it the hard way and he is still finding ways to adapt his explosive game to the slower and higher bouncing clay courts.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-2210230976-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Photo by Alexander Hassenstein\/Getty Images for BMW\" \/>Photo by Alexander Hassenstein\/Getty Images for BMW<strong>What does Ben Shelton find \u2018weird\u2019 about clay court tennis?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>2025 marks what is just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/ben-shelton\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ben Shelton\u2019s<\/a> third full season as a professional tennis player.<\/p>\n<p>He has established himself as a top 20 player and Shelton also has two Grand Slam semi-finals to his name.<\/p>\n<p>However, the vast majority of his success so far has come on hard courts and he is still understanding how to play on European clay.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think this is the type of tough win that can propel your season, or propel your clay-court swing,\u201d Shelton told reporters after his first round match in Munich.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWeird things happen on clay. It\u2019s not always straightforward. I\u2019m learning more and more every day how to play, how to move. I\u2019m just happy with the progression.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously being down match points is never easy, and to come through was a little bit lucky but I\u2019m happy with the way I closed it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-2210230975-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Photo by Alexander Hassenstein\/Getty Images for BMW\" \/>Photo by Alexander Hassenstein\/Getty Images for BMW<strong>Ben Shelton saves match points to win opening match in Munich<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Shelton took on Croatia\u2019s Borna Gojo in his first match at the 2025 Munich Open.<\/p>\n<p>The World number 15 was made to work extremely hard for his victory, and saved three match points before claiming the win.<\/p>\n<p>Shelton saved his first two match points while trailing 4-6 in the second set tiebreak, before saving a third at 5-6, 30-40 in the deciding set.<\/p>\n<p>After two hours and 25 minutes Shelton prevailed 4-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(3) and he gave an honest assessment of the tricky contest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was ridiculously difficult,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cThe way that he served, the way that he played, even when he got upset. He just started slapping winners.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was a tough ask, to go up against him. I got lucky in a couple of big moments and held my nerve down a few match points. I\u2019m really happy to be in the second round here in Munich.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Shelton explained why he is still trying to learn about playing clay court tennis. The American started&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[4294,15571,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-25406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-ben-shelton","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114349006159757123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}