Ben Shelton celebrates in rival’s face and has commentator screaming after shot

Ben Shelton did away with the etiquette of typical tennis to have fun within the face of Frances Tiafoe after a sensational shot throughout Ultimate Tennis Showdown 5. The two Americans went head-to-head in Group B on the Digital Health Sports Park in Los Angeles in what was the primary event of three main as much as the Grand Final in December.

Players within the event go underneath private nicknames, with Shelton labelled ‘The Mountain’ and Tiafoe merely often known as ‘Big Foe’.

The flashpoint of their contest arrived within the fourth quarter of the timed occasion when a backhand from Tiafoe hit the web, forcing Shelton to scramble forwards. The 20-year-old arrived in time earlier than dropping backspin on his deft return that put his opponent right into a dash to the web.

But when Tiafoe acquired there in time and smashed the ball at Shelton from point-blank vary, ‘The Mountain’ used his racket like a protect to deflect the ball again over and in some way win the purpose.

The pumped-up world No. 39 then proceeded to have fun by coming across the web and celebrating straight within the face of quantity 10-ranked Tiafoe, who waved him away.

With the group screaming, even the commentators could not assist however get in on the motion. “Oh no! That is ridiculous,” mentioned one earlier than the co-commentator added: “Unbelievable from the Mountain. He said earlier that one of his amazing shots was pure luck. I think that might have been pure luck.”

Shelton went on to complete second in Group B, establishing a semi-final showdown with ‘The Great Wall’ Wu Yibing, however it was the person from China who prevailed, happening to beat top-ranked American Taylor Fritz within the remaining.

The Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) is a world particular person tennis league that was arrange in 2020 by tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou and businessman Alex Popyrin, father {of professional} tennis participant Alexei Popyrin.

Now in its fifth version, UTS matches have completely different guidelines to conventional tennis, together with contests being divided into timed quarters fairly than units, a 15-second shot clock for serves and the power to take a training timeout as soon as per set.

Players even have “cards” — which permit gamers to change the end result of the sport with powers corresponding to taking away the opponent’s second serve.

Unlike the standard tennis skilled at Wimbledon earlier this month, UTS doesn’t implement a code of conduct, which means that Shelton’s goading of Tiafoe is taken into account honest recreation and didn’t end in a code violation.