Ben Shelton licked his lips as he prepared for another battle. The eighth seed at the Australian Open and his third-round opponent, Valentin Vacherot, have both come a long way since their paths crossed in the semi-finals of the Southeastern Conference men’s tennis tournament in April 2021, as Shelton’s Florida progressed past Vacherot’s Texas A&M at the Billingsley Tennis Centre in Arkansas.
But the road they have both taken, from the NCCA college system to Masters champions on the ATP Tour, has been one of the defining aspects of the first week of the Australian Open in Melbourne. The men’s draw has been flooded with players who rose through the rowdy crowds of the NCAA and emerged hardened for life as a professional. There were 25 men in this year’s Australian Open main draw who had come through college, the most since 2009. Of that group, a handful, including Shelton, Vacherot and the 25th seed Cameron Norrie, are through to the third round.
