Paris Masters: Ben Shelton, the Star Who Rooted for Tommy Paul, Now Blocks His Turin Bid

Ben Shelton said it before anyone asked: he has spent the whole year rooting for Tommy Paul, hoping his friend would make the late push that carries him to the season-ending finals in Turin. Now that push has to go straight through him. Their Paris Masters quarterfinal puts the American who has nothing left to qualify for across the net from the American who still has everything to win, and Paul’s motive needs no explaining. Shelton’s does.

The answer came in the final minutes of his previous match, and he supplied the word himself. Shelton has built a career on power, on a serve and a forehand that end points before they become rallies. What carried him into this quarterfinal was something quieter. Down a mini-break in a deciding tie-break, in front of a full French crowd, he described feeling not nerves but “kind of a calmness.”

The tie-break that showed a different Shelton

The third seed came from a set down to beat home favorite Arthur Rinderknech 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) on Court Central. Rinderknech, a serve-and-volleyer, had taken the opener in 27 minutes and had beaten Shelton in their only previous meeting, at Queen’s in 2025. Shelton broke in the last game of the second set to level, and neither man dropped serve in the decider, which ran an hour on its own.

In the tie-break, Rinderknech went up 4-2. Shelton took the next point on the Frenchman’s serve, then two on his own, then won another return point at 5-5 and closed on his first match point. Both players hit 16 aces; the gap was in the misses, 31 unforced errors from Rinderknech against 13 from Shelton, according to Tennis Majors.

“Honestly, today, no,” Shelton said when asked whether the mini-break deficit worried him. “I hadn’t missed a first serve in the breaker and I was hitting spots.” Then he went further: “Sometimes when I’m in that position I definitely feel the nerves, but today there was kind of a calmness about me in those final moments.”

A record season with holes in it

The win was his 43rd of 2026, more than in any previous season of his career, as Tennishead notes. The season around it has been the best of his life: four titles by The Associated Press’s count, including the Canadian Open in Montreal, won without dropping a set, and a first major final at the U.S. Open, which he lost to Alexander Zverev. He arrives as the world No. 4 and the first American to reach back-to-back quarterfinals in Paris since Jack Sock, according to the ATP.

But the same year holds six tournaments where Shelton failed to win a single match. That is this season in one line: enormous highs, sudden blanks. A player who can find calm in a final-set tie-break against a home crowd is a player closing that gap. Paris is where he is testing whether it holds.

Two days before his first match in Paris, Shelton announced that Juan Carlos Ferrero, the former world No. 1 who guided Carlos Alcaraz to his first six major titles, will join his father, Bryan, on his coaching staff for 2027. “Huge addition to my team for this upcoming season,” Shelton said. Ferrero spoke of his “extraordinary talent, power and character.” The new chapter starts in the offseason. Whatever composure Shelton is showing this week, he found before it began.

Tommy Paul: the friend with everything at stake

Paul comes in from the opposite position. The 12th seed has won all three of his matches in straight sets, over Holger Rune, Daniel Merida and Quentin Halys, and against Halys he won 43 of 45 first-serve points, with 36 winners to 14 unforced errors, Field Level Media reported. He sits 13th in the live Race to Turin. Because Jannik Sinner’s season-ending injury keeps him out of the field, Paul needs to finish ninth or better, and by Tennishead’s arithmetic that means reaching the final here. A loss on Friday ends it.

Shelton, already qualified, knows exactly what that means. “He’s in great form right now. A great player, a great friend,” he said. “I’ve been rooting for him all year to make a push and make it to Turin. It will be fireworks.”

The record says it could be. Their head-to-head stands at two wins each. Shelton took both of their 2023 meetings, at the U.S. Open and in Tokyo, and Paul won the most recent, 6-2, 6-4 in the Dallas semifinals in 2024, which is also their only indoor match. They have not played since. Shelton says Paris is “definitely not the fastest tournament this year,” though he likes the variety of tennis its court produces.

What comes next

The quarterfinal is scheduled for Friday at the Rolex Paris Masters. The winner meets either Luca Van Assche, who beat Lorenzo Musetti, or qualifier Rinky Hijikata in the semifinals. Previews already treat whoever survives Shelton against Paul as the favorite in that semifinal.

For Paul, it is a Turin match. For Shelton, it is a test of the trait he named himself on Thursday. If that calm holds once more, the friend he cheered all season goes home with his Race over, and the player who ends it will be the one who said out loud that he wanted him there.

Tags: Ben Shelton, ATP Finals, Paris Masters, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Tommy Paul