Ben Shelton admitted he is trying to take a leaf out of Novak Djokovic’s book when it comes to the return of serve.

Shelton is known for having one of the biggest and best serves in men’s tennis but his return game can lag behind many of his ATP Tour rivals.

According to the ATP’s ‘Serve Leaders’ – which looks at first serve percentage, points won on serve, service games won, aces and double faults – the American is fourth on the leaderboard.

On the return, however, the 24-year-old, who is behind Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, and Taylor Fritz in the serving rankings, is way down in 72nd.

Moreover, for percentage of return games won, the US Open finalist is the worst in the top 20 at 14.5% over the past 52 weeks. As per Tennis Ratio, only the likes of Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (9.9%) and Arthur Rinderknech (14.1%) score worse in that regard.

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On the flip side, world No 1 Zverev is at 21.4%, Sinner is flying high on 28.7%, and Carlos Alcaraz is even higher on 30.5%. And yet, Shelton is still ranked fourth in the world despite these deficiencies.

Despite that, the two-time Canadian Open winner believes his returning skills are “elite” on slower courts, but on faster surfaces, you need to “guess” a bit more. Shelton added that Djokovic, arguably tennis’ greatest-ever returner, is the “blueprint” for that.

He said on Tennis Channel, “You have got to guess a little bit and make educated guesses. If you try and play a 50/50, the ball is flying by you too fast. Novak is the blueprint for that, hedging his bet, hedging one way, and a lot of times he is right.

“It is something you learn from the best returners in the world. For me, watching tape, trying to improve my return, I feel that on slower courts now I am a very elite returner, and over the summer I was finding ways to break multiple times a set.

“I think on the faster courts you have to be a little bit more intelligent and savvy to get those breaks and put the ball back in the court. I took my chances; I was aggressive on second serve return, and I think that is also very important to get the upper hand on the guy’s second serve.”

Many players complain that the tour has too many slow courts, rather than fast ones. So, arguably, the numbers don’t back up Shelton’s argument.

Incidentally, Shelton is set to work with Juan Carlos Ferrero next season. Whether the Spaniard targets the American’s return game remains to be seen.

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