Ben Shelton’s Faith: Success and Failure as Gifts

For a number of years, I had stopped following professional tennis regularly. And despite playing tennis and competing regularly, I was completely oblivious to the new faces within the professional tennis world. However, this changed in 2023, when I began watching the Grand Slams again, particularly the US Open.

This was around the time Ben Shelton caught my attention. His last name immediately sounded familiar, as did others on the professional circuit, including Ruud (Casper) and Korda (Sebastian)—sons of former professionals Christian Ruud and Petr Korda. As a boy, I remember watching Bryan Shelton play at the US Open and in other ATP events. So, when I saw this young American making a surprising run in New York, I found myself wondering: Could he possibly be Bryan Shelton’s son? It turned out that my intuition was correct.

Shelton was the 2022 NCAA singles champion while representing the University of Florida before turning professional later that year. His breakthrough came the following year. It was his second time playing the tournament, but he managed to defeat top fellow American players such as Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe before making it to the semifinals, where he lost to the greatest player of all time, Novak Djokovic, who ended up winning the championship. This prompted me to pay closer attention to Shelton.

Having played tennis for a significant portion of my life, I was highly impressed by Shelton’s enormous left-handed serve, explosivity, and finely tuned competitive instincts.

Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena Williams’ longtime former coach and one of the most recognizable coaches in modern tennis, has called Shelton the best server on tour and perhaps the smartest on the ATP Tour. In a video, he elaborates on how Shelton can blast serves at extraordinary speeds but can also vary the speed of his first serve by 100 km an hour. Shelton doesn’t solely rely on power but on careful placement, variation, and the element of surprise.

This year, he defended his title at the National Bank Open in Canada, one of those Masters 1000 tournaments that sit just below the four Slams. That week, and the way he has gone about things since, made it easy to see him as the most promising American male player since Andy Roddick.

Roddick is still the last American man to win a major. He took the 2003 US Open after saving a match point in the semis against my favorite player of that era, David Nalbandian—an Argentine who played some of the most beautiful tennis of the modern game and never did win a Slam.

Then the 2026 US Open arrived. What stayed with me was not only how Shelton played but how he carried himself and the things he said once the matches were over.

After defeating Frances Tiafoe in the semifinals on September 11, 2026, at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Shelton was reminded by another black professional tennis player, now-commentator Christopher Eubanks, that he would become the first black American man since Arthur Ashe in 1972 to reach the US Open final. Rather than turning the moment into a political statement, he spoke about family and sacrifice.

His father, Bryan, had lost his mother earlier in the year, and Shelton explained that she had played an important role in making Bryan’s own tennis career possible. “Without her, there’s no Ben Shelton standing here today,” he said. “This one is for her.”

Before leaving the court, he also acknowledged the significance of September 11, offering his thoughts and prayers to the families affected by the attacks, despite having been born more than a year after they occurred.

Shelton has also been quite open about his Christian faith, with the word “BELIEVE” accompanied by a cross appearing prominently on his social media.

Two days later, after losing the final, Shelton said something that struck me even more. Athletes often thank God after winning, but Shelton went beyond generic words. “First and most importantly, I want to thank God,” he began. Then came the line that stayed with me: “My successes are a gift, the failures are a gift, and being here playing in front of you guys is a gift.” In my mind, these words display a considerable level of Christian wisdom.

The Scriptures consistently admonish us against measuring God’s providence solely by outward favor, such as wealth, talent, and overall success. When we encounter trials of any sort, we can reflect upon St. James’ words to “count it all joy,” since a faith that is tested is one that produces persistence (James 1:2-4). Similarly, St. Paul instructs Christians to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Elsewhere, St. Paul shares that he has learned to live through both abundance and need while remaining content (Philippians 4:12). Therefore, gratitude is not something solely reserved for victory alone but should be expressed in the center of our very being.

I would also argue further that there is a philosophical wisdom at play in Shelton’s words. For instance, Aristotle understood character as not something we merely possess but something that is gradually formed by our repeated moral habits and decisions. In Book II of his Nicomachean Ethics, he explains that virtuous behavior is developed through practice—which, I would assert, includes our sentiments and responses to situations that do not favor us, such as a loss or failure in sports. Moreover, in the opening section of The Enchiridion, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus made an important distinction that can be applied here between what we can and cannot control:

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

In that sense, even though we cannot control the outcome of a particular event, we can indeed control how we react to such events or circumstances in life. Competition in sports really concretizes these lessons in a very immediate way. Christianity incorporates such wisdom into a robust framework. Christianity makes clear that our successes and failures acquire ultimate meaning when received in gratitude before the source of all that is good—namely, God.

Shelton also demonstrated a lot of graciousness toward Alexander Zverev and his team. Rather than making excuses for his loss, he praised Zverev’s strong work ethic and the way he and his team approached the game. He then went on to thank his own family, coaches, friends, tournament organizers, sponsors, volunteers, drivers, umpires, ball kids, security guards, and others who make these events possible. This showed that he understood that success is never entirely one’s own achievement but a joint effort with many others.

That lesson has resonated with me personally this year. My own tennis season has been plagued by injuries and certain conditions, bad weather, low confidence, a lack of rhythm, and other internal demons that have made it difficult to compete at a decent level. Last year, overall, I had a much better season. But these are the ebbs and flows of tennis, and really of any sport.

Recently, a fellow parishioner came to me seeking advice, lamenting one of his substandard results in a pickleball tournament. He asked me, “Do you ever feel like you’re not all there or playing your best in a tournament?” I jokingly responded that this is how I feel almost every time I pick up a racket. I went on to state that sometimes I reach the point when I want to burn all of them and wish I had never even heard of tennis. However, I always come back to the same realization: that I am fortunate enough to be able to play.

That is why Shelton’s words resonated with me as we near the end of the outdoor tennis season here in Ottawa, Canada. The gift is not merely winning. St. Paul himself adopts the athletic imagery familiar to the Greco-Roman world and, in a sense, baptizes it when he tells Christians to “run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24), transforming athletic discipline and competition into an image of a higher, imperishable purpose.

The gift is the opportunity to compete at all. The gift is being present, being able to enjoy a sport, and being healthy enough to play it. And it is also to appreciate everything that it brings, including being outside, friendships, competition, exercise, accomplishment—and, also, failure.

I believe that for Christians the gift of sport is something to be embraced. This is true whether one is a professional, an amateur, or simply a recreational player. It is this very ability to be able to step onto a court, test oneself, experience joy and frustration, and continue playing, which is itself a gift from God.

What impressed me most about Ben Shelton is that he, someone from a younger generation, reminded me to be more mindful of something I too easily forget, especially when I dwell on the negative: success is a gift, failure is a gift, and sometimes even the struggle is part of the blessing.