“I“I would say if I had a grade for my game, I would have played B or C tennis so far this year,” says Ben Shelton. “I don’t think I’ve played my best tennis this season. I don’t think we’ve seen my peak this year.”

Shelton is just coming from Wimbledon when he tells me this. The same Grand Slam where he played three grueling five-set matches and two doubles matches in a week before losing to world number one Jannik Sinner in the round of 16. He also began the tournament with a bruised knee, which he sustained in a bad fall during practice. “I wasn’t really sure if I would play,” he says.

Last year he was eliminated in the second round and two years ago he stepped onto grass for the first time. Nevertheless, Shelton is dissatisfied. “I’m happy with what I’ve been able to achieve in my career so far, but of course I’m not happy with where I am,” he says.

This is Shelton’s second full year on tour. The 6’4″ American was just beginning his junior year of tennis at the University of Florida, where his father was a coach, when he decided to turn pro. His serve – left-handed and at speeds of up to 150 mph – has the baseline crowd on high alert, fearful of catching a mishits. With a rocket serve, a massive forehand and come on! As if made for noisy tennis stadiums, he surprisingly made it to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open last year and then to the semifinals of the US Open.

This year, he briefly became the No. 1 player on the American tennis tour. He is ranked No. 13 in the world ahead of the US Open, which begins Monday in Flushing Meadows. With American men’s tennis enduring a long dry spell at Grand Slam tournaments, some commentators have been watching Ben’s game and wondering: Is he the next great hope for the US men?

The fighter in him certainly has what it takes to be the next big star – and the certainty that he is far from reaching his peak. “The mental side, the competitive spirit is what has gotten me so far this year, even if I haven’t felt perfect on the court,” he says. “How much I am willing to stay out there and fight was the deciding factor that helped me in many of my matches at Wimbledon, even if I didn’t play my best.”

TThe stern assessment of his game is at odds with the 21-year-old I speak to a week later at the Mubadala Citi DC Open in Washington DC. Shelton laughs with his team as he leaves the doubles court to attend to his media obligations. It’s been a long day: two rain interruptions pushed his match into the evening before it ended in a loss. We sit diagonally across from each other on couches in the players’ area, and he takes a minute to point out the joke that sent them into fits of rage. It’s offensive, but he doubles over with laughter again, and I can’t help but laugh with him.

“I’m sorry, we’re kids,” he says, throwing his friend into trouble. “I apologize,” he says, showing a dimpled smile. He puts a towel over his broad shoulders, takes his second post-match protein shake from his coach, and gets ready to talk tennis.

Shelton’s interest in tennis came late in life, in a sport in which most kids specialize at a young age – and all too often burn out. Early on, he bucked the legacy of his father, Bryan Shelton, a former professional, and his mother, a top-ranked junior player.

“I thought tennis was a boring sport. Football, basketball and baseball were the cooler sports in America. As a child, I was obsessed with those sports. But that’s the way it is,” he says, laughing.

When he saw his sister skipping school for tournaments, he changed his mind. He was 13. But instead of competing in the Junior Grand Slams, Shelton stayed closer to home, and when it came to choosing a college, he chose the University of Florida, which was closer to home, where his father was a coach.

“I was pretty underdeveloped when I got to college. I had a lot of weaknesses in my game,” he says. “On the court, I was a little bit crazy, I got angry pretty easily. But you know, when you don’t do the right thing on a college team and your dad is the coach, the punishment is a lot harsher than other guys on the team. I learned pretty quickly how to fix things and figure out how to be a good teammate, keep a low profile when I needed to, and have fewer outbursts or bad practices or miss a practice because I overslept.”

What kind of punishments were they? “He just went at me and yelled at me more than the other guys, but I understand that because you can’t show favoritism to anyone. Or I had to run sprints before everyone else if I was late, but if someone else was late and then I was late, I ran a lot more sprints than them.”

But he thanks the team for keeping him in check. “I think tennis can be a selfish sport and a lot of people think the world only revolves around them as professional tennis players because the team takes care of them, the tournament takes care of them and everything else.”

“But I had the opportunity to play on a team and support my teammates. Sometimes I even sat on the bench and let others get the credit. I think that helped me a lot as a person, and on the tennis tour, it’s tough sometimes because you’re alone and you’re competing alone. And I really miss the team aspect that I had in college and other team sports.”

Shelton spent a year on tour before his father joined him. Shelton says his father has become more relaxed, and in matches the elder Shelton is the epitome of composure, in contrast to the younger’s boisterous cheers after every point. But it’s clear they speak the same language: Bryan offers a piece of advice or two, and Ben is already nodding, ready to play the next point.

“His adaptability makes him a great coach,” Shelton says. “He doesn’t have to talk in my ear all the time or just sit back and watch. He does both. He reads me and understands what I need in the moment. He gives me the information when he thinks I’m going to need it. He backs off a little when he thinks I’ve figured it out myself.”

The late start also had advantages, even with the gaps in the game: Shelton was always chasing the better players.

“I developed a chaser or hunter mentality,” he says. “I was never the best in my age group. There were always people to chase and I always had room for improvement and there were always people doing things better than me. So I never felt like I got complacent or thought I was too good to keep working hard.”

Today, Shelton is still chasing better competitors, but he trusts the process. “I’m not the complete player I want to be yet, and so I’m okay with taking what some would call a step back to continue to improve,” he says.

He lists the aspects of the game he is currently working on: movement, return, serve and general shot tolerance. “When I move really well, I usually play really well, and that’s something I’m not 100% at yet,” he says. Returning has been “a liability in the past,” he admits. And his game wouldn’t be what it is without the serve – “a weapon that needs to continue to improve.”

He’s been keeping points longer and winning more of them. He’s been working on getting in the net more often, using his weapons and he’s playing doubles to get reps.

He attributes it to the mental side that he has made it so far into the tournaments this year. “Once the physical side, the actual tennis, comes into play, I think I’m in a really good position.”

Shelton stayed in the US during the Olympics and started the hard court season, while others went to Paris to play on clay. Some players make this decision for money or points: Since many of the best players represent their countries at the Olympics, those who play on the tour have a better chance of advancing in tournaments. I ask him why he stayed.

“The points or the prize money are not my motivation to play tennis. I love playing in front of big crowds. I love playing against the biggest or at the biggest events against the best players. The Olympics is definitely an attractive event, something I would really like to play. But for me it was easy – I didn’t want to go back to Europe. I had enough at that point,” he said, laughing. “The season is already so long.”

It’s hard to imagine that the participant is new to the tour. “I never left the country until last year,” he says.

Instead, Shelton stayed in the United States before the US Open and tried to find his best game. He admits he’s the type of guy who needs a few weeks to find his rhythm on a new surface. “I barely won a match in the four tournaments before the Open last year,” he said. “Everyone was talking about how I didn’t win two matches in a row in the middle of the year.”

This year, he improved his record on hard courts in the run-up to the US Open. He made it to the semifinals at the DC Open. He made it to the quarterfinals at the Cincinnati Open. But the first match of this hard court tour got off to a rocky start. Shelton lost his first match at the Atlanta Open to a player ranked 89th in the world. That was a disappointment; the conditions were there for a good performance as the top seed. But Shelton is not deterred.

“It takes a lot to push the panic button for me, and I’m 21 years old. I’m not too worried.” Tennis, he says, lasts about 52 weeks – not a single match.

“I want consistency in my effort and competitiveness. I want to continually improve my game. But that doesn’t mean the results come every week,” he said. “The greats learn how to make it happen week in and week out, no matter how they feel, and that’s something I’m working on, but I think it takes a lot of experience.”