Ben Shelton sees it all.
Since his breakout performance at the 2023 US Open, where he became the youngest American man to make the semifinal since 1992, the 22-year-old tennis phenom has only attracted more eyes to his game. In the digital age, growing popularity translates to more Instagram followers — 853,000 for Shelton — and dreamy TikTok montages of him.
In short clips that have reached upward of four million views and 600,000 likes on TikTok, users are fawning over the rising star’s good looks and passionate on-court personality. He’s even picked up the attention of non-tennis fans. Under a 20-second video set to NLE Choppa’s “Self Esteem,” the top-liked comment said, “I should start watching tennis.”
When asked if he’s seen the edits, Shelton tells PEOPLE ahead of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, “It’s hard not to see that.”
He continues, “They are outrageous. Some of the people, the comments and the captions, they got issues. It’s pretty funny for me.”
While the edits have popped up on his TikTok For You page, he and his friends also have an “ongoing joke” in which they send over videos to poke fun at him.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
His fellow players have noticed the hype. The hosts of tennis podcast Nothing Major, retired American tennis stars John Isner, Sam Querrey, Jack Sock and Steve Johnson, included Shelton in their men’s tennis “hottie” bracket.
In a 16-man fan-voted tournament of the sport’s sexiest heartthrobs, Shelton progressed to the second round, encountering eventual winner Matteo Berrettini. Then, he personally withdrew.
“I didn’t want no smoke with [Matteo],” he explains. “No, I think that all those guys in that draw are way better looking at me, so I’m not really sure why they picked me.”
At the 2025 Australian Open, Shelton became the youngest American since Andy Roddick to reach the semifinal, losing to eventual champion and world No. 1 Jannik Sinner.
During his quarterfinal press conference, the athlete made headlines for speaking out about the Australian media’s “disrespectful” treatment of players.
“[It’s] something I noticed at a few different tournaments with different people, the way that athletes got treated or talked about,” he says. “I thought that it was disrespectful at times, and that was something that I thought needed to be addressed. … I thought it was really poor in Australia this year.”
Shelton kicks off his Indian Wells campaign on Saturday, March 8.
Read the full article here
