Ben Shelton clinches fifth ATP title with victory over Flavio Cobolli in Munich

[p]One year after losing in the final to [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/zverev-alexander/dGbUhw9m/"]Zverev[/a], world No. 6 [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/shelton-ben/QNuG0Gzb/"]Shelton[/a] claimed the fifth ATP title of his career and his second of the season after Dallas, on hard court.[/p][p]“I came out at a really high level and have done that before against him," said Shelton after the match.[/p][p]"[b]The toughest thing is maintaining it as he raises his level. I managed to do that in the second set and played some great tennis[/b].[/p][p]"[b]I am happy with my performance this week. I got better and better as the week went on and I am happy with the work me and the team put in.[/b]”[/p][embed guid="4d7319bd-94b2-4efa-9d63-be5ca634ec16" url="https://x.com/TennisTV/status/2045854527190970540" social-type="twitter" /][p]Shelton, who won an ATP 250-level clay-court tournament clay in Houston in 2024, also became the first American man since Andre Agassi at the Rome Masters 1000 in 2002 to win a tournament on the surface at a higher level.[/p][p]“I have big ambitions for the clay courts,” Shelton added. “[b]It is a surface I want to get better on each year. It is slowly becoming one of my favourite surfaces to play on[/b].”[/p][p]Shelton had a comfortable ride against opponents outside the world's top 30 until the final although world no. 16 [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/cobolli-flavio/zDtaCcPe/"]Cobolli[/a] was unable to reproduce the performance which did for Zverev.[/p][p]The American cruised through the first set, breaking his opponent’s first two service games, even though Cobolli saved eight set points — six of them on his own serve — before finally yielding on the ninth.[/p][embed guid="4d37fb22-6300-45db-b558-88e00ce23ec2" url="https://x.com/TennisTV/status/2045859766505767013" social-type="twitter" /][p]The second set was much more tightly contested as it went with serve up to 5–5.[/p][p]But a double fault from Cobolli handed Shelton a break at the perfect moment, and he made no mistake in [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/game/tennis/cobolli-f-zDtaCcPe/shelton-b-QNuG0Gzb/?mid=MkYRydyg"]closing it out after 1 hour 31 minutes[/a].[/p]