Over the past few years, young American stars have taken the tennis world by storm. The likes of Coco Gauff and Ben Shelton enthralled fans with their audacious displays on the court. While they certainly caught the eyes with their performances on the court, Shelton and Gauff also shared a wonderful bond off the court and often gave glimpses of their wonderful time together at the events. On this occasion, Shelton opened up about his relationship with Gauff and other American peers.

The 22-year-old opened his campaign at the Australian Open earlier today and had a comfortable straight-set win over Brandon Nakashima. Subsequently, he sat down for an interview during which he was asked about his bonding with other American stars.

Shelton replied, “I’m friends with most of them uh definitely close friends with Coco and Chris Eubanks we’ve been watching pretty closely to see if Banks is going to get in on lucky loser uh I think he was third, and one guy pulled out so I don’t think he ended up getting in but um yeah that was kind of one thing we were looking at.”

Additionally, last year, Shelton even revealed why people love Gauff, saying, “She’s’ charismatic. Such a great athlete. Has so many qualities out there that resemble a male player. The way she moves and the way she can defend. You see something from her that’s special and different. She plays with a lot of passion. You can tell she cares out there. She’s into it every time she’s out on court. I think that’s something people love.”

Interestingly, Shelton and Gauff even spent an off-court outing at the ongoing Australian Open. They were spotted on a late-night ice-cream outing, sparking rumors of a budding romance between the two. As rumors began to circulate about Shelton and Gauff’s budding romance, the latter broke her silence on this matter.

Coco Gauff breaks silence on her relationship status

The 20-year-old has often been found with a mystery boyfriend and fans have rumored it to be Ben Shelton. However, last year, Gauff finally broke her silence and described her boyfriend, which was enough to rubbish her links to Shelton.

Opening up about her boyfriend, Gauff stated, “He’s a very nice guy. He’s in school now. He’s about to apply for music school. He wants to be an actor and he plays the guitar. He’s not from Delray. He’s actually from Atlanta. And actually, um, I will say this: People on Twitter found him two or three days ago. I won’t respond and confirm if it’s him or not, but they caught me in the comments, so they know. Some people thought it was someone in tennis and that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Despite Guaff’s clarification, rumors about Shelton and Gauff’s link-up haven’t stopped. Nonetheless, the two are fully focused on the task at hand and that is to win the Australian Open title. Both Shelton and Gauff are through to the second round and would like to dig deep into the tournament.