Welcome to Locker Room Code, where ATP Tour players share the stories behind life on Tour. From unwritten rules and rookie mistakes to friendships and unforgettable moments, this series goes beyond the baseline. This week, Ben Shelton reflects on first meetings with favourite players and how locker room culture may have changed. Read all instalments of Locker Room Code here.
For any young player, entering an ATP Tour locker room for the first time can be a daunting moment. After all, they are entering a closed-off environment populated exclusively by the on-court rivals they hope to soon take down.
Established players offering a newcomer a ‘mixed’ locker-room reception could therefore be understandable, but Ben Shelton’s experience was nothing like that. The American instead remembers a positive atmosphere among the playing group when he started competing regularly on the ATP Tour from the start of 2023.
“Certainly guys like [Gael] Monfils,” Shelton told ATPTour.com when asked for the friendliest faces he remembers from his early days in the locker room. “Taylor [Fritz], Frances [Tiafoe], Tommy [Paul], the Americans. But I thought everyone for the most part was pretty welcoming.
“For me, I always thought that Foe was the coolest. So the first time that I met him and practised with him in Atlanta, that was pretty cool for me because I’d been watching him on TV the past couple of years and he was one of my favourite players. Monfils also. When I met him for the first time it was like meeting a character out of a movie.”
Modern television and social media coverage of tennis has enabled unprecedented insight on ATP Tour stars, both on and off the court, while they compete at the world’s biggest tournaments. Yet the locker room itself, where players spend the moments directly before and after matches, remains something of an unknown quantity to fans.
“There’s people talking shit,” Shelton said light-heartedly, when asked what really goes on in an ATP Tour locker room. “But it’s pretty relaxed. [My favourite players to talk smack with are] Arthur Fils, any of the Americans. Pretty much anyone. [Alejandro] Davidovich Fokina.”
Now deep into his fourth full season on the ATP Tour, Shelton is a relative veteran when it comes to occupying the same locker room as his greatest rivals — a circumstance that differentiates tennis from many other sports. While past iterations of the locker room may have involved players adhering to unspoken conventions, hierarchies spearheaded by more ‘senior’ players, and specific etiquette, the American does not feel that is still the case.
“I think since I’ve been on Tour that’s changed a little bit,” the 23-year-old said. “I think it used to be like that, but now the young guys don’t care as much. They just come out and ball, to be honest. There used to be, I felt, a fear of the older guys and the established names, but when I see young guys come out on Tour now, I don’t see any fear at all.”
Not that the ATP Tour locker room exists completely without self-regulation from the playing body. Shelton did identify one convention that he, at least, adheres to.
“The only unwritten rule is you don’t talk about it,” he said with a smile. “What happens in the locker room stays in the locker room, I guess.”
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