Rival’s dad still fuming over Novak Djokovic’s ‘bad’ US Open act

Ben Shelton’s dada is inactive hung up connected Novak Djokovic’s U.S. Open celebration.

Bryan Shelton told GQ that Djokovic, who won the expansive slam event, went excessively acold successful imitating his son’s phone-slamming solemnisation aft a semi-final triumph astatine Flushing Meadows.

“He wants to beryllium loved truthful much, Novak …” Bryan told the mag arsenic portion of a lengthy diagnostic connected his son.

“He wanted to mock Ben astatine the end. It wasn’t thing helium was doing conscionable to transcript Ben. It was to mock him. And that’s excessively bad, for that to travel from specified a large champion.”

Djokovic rolled done the archetypal 2 sets against the 20-year-old American upstart earlier a back-and-forth conflict successful 3rd acceptable reached a tie-breaker that Djokovic won, 7-4.

After the last point, Djokovic mimicked slamming a telephone down — the aforesaid solemnisation Shelton had utilized successful the erstwhile circular aft his upset of Frances Tiafoe.

“I conscionable emotion Ben’s celebration,” Djokovic said aft the match. “I thought helium was precise archetypal and I copied him. I stole his celebration”

At slightest publicly, Ben did not instrumentality the mocking arsenic idiosyncratic arsenic his begetter did.

“I don’t similar erstwhile I’m connected societal media, and I spot radical telling maine however I tin observe oregon can’t celebrate,” Shelton said aft his deepest tally astatine a expansive slam earned him nationalist notoriety.

“If you triumph the match, you merit to bash immoderate you want. As a kid, I ever learned that imitation is the sincerest signifier of flattery.”

Djokovic followed his triumph implicit Shelton up by dominating Daniil Medvedev successful the last to triumph his 24th expansive slam championship.

Shelton, who starred astatine the University of Florida, volition look to physique connected his stunning tally and is among the candidates to beryllium America’s adjacent antheral breakout star.

It has present been 20 years since Andy Roddick captured the U.S. Open.

Shelton talked to GQ astir the unit of ever being successful the nationalist eye.

“At the U.S. Open, the camera and the mic are ever there,” Shelton said. “You spell into the gym, they’re pursuing you. I’m talking with Coco [Gauff] aft we some won our match, there’s a mic supra our head.

“You don’t truly person a harmless abstraction wherever radical aren’t watching, Every erstwhile successful a while, you accidental thing you privation you didn’t. And you conscionable look astatine the camera that’s caught you, it’s successful your caput a small bit.”

This nonfiction was primitively published by the New York Post and reproduced with permission