The 21-year-old American tennis sensation, Ben Shelton had a good outing last season. He made his mark in quite a few big stages of the game and now he looks forward to carrying forward the momentum in the next season as well. Shelton has always been in the limelight for his on and off-the-court activities. And, recently he got himself picked by ESPN in a ‘much-debated list’. What’s it?

Well, ESPN recently released a list of their picks for the major events in 2024. Seeing that list fans came out in numbers to take a dig at both Ben Shelton and ESPN. Let’s find out how they reacted to this.

ESPN’s overconfident Ben Shelton prediction puts fans in a rage

2023 marked the breakthrough season for the 21YO American. Shelton reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and the semifinals of the US Open in the same year. Later on, he even got the taste of his first title at an ATP 500 event in Tokyo. This stellar run took him to his best career ranking of number 15 on October 23, last year.

Perhaps these performances have put him on the list of favorites by ESPN in winning the US Open 2024. ESPN had predicted different winners across both men’s and women’s events in all the major tournaments in 2024. But the most controversial among those picks was the no.17, Ben Shelton. Here’s how fans reacted seeing this.

One of them felt surprised after he saw the 22-year-old Italian talent, Jannik Sinner missing from the list. He felt Sinner had a better chance of winning a major title than Ben Shelton.

I hope out of all they got Ons right,

but no Sinner ???
Sinner got a better chance than Shelton to a Slam tbh

The Americans did the same with Korda and Taylor and Frances before
Still 21 years on….

— Loli (@LoliLondon) January 2, 2024

The other one mockingly said, ‘Picking Ben Shelton to win the 2024 US OPEN is like picking the son of Novak Djokovic to win AO24 or the son of Rafael Nadal to win RG24. Such absurdity from so-called tennis pundits never ceased to amaze me. Come on ESPN you can do better than stupid.’

Another one felt these picks were hilarious. Although he didn’t forget to mention he would never write off Rafael Nadal from being in the contenders list.

While the other one just laughed at seeing Shelton on the list.

Ben Shelton winning the US Open in 2024 seemed as if nothing but a joke to most of them.

Can Ben Shelton prove them wrong? Well, he has already proved his mettle earlier and surely he’ll be one of the biggest challengers of the big names of the game this season. But the year didn’t start up well for the young lad. But why?

Shelton faces a shocking exit from his first tournament in 2024

Brisbane International marks a good preparatory stage ahead of the first major event of the season. The Australian Open is set to commence from January 14. But before that, Ben Shelton faces an unexpected defeat to Roman Safiullin in the first-round match at the Brisbane International.

The 26-year-old Russian, defeated the American by 6-3,6-7(5),6-3 to move through to the Round of 16. Shelton is regarded as one of the promising stars in the men’s circuit. Can he move himself up to the top 10 this year? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.

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