Ben Shelton battles back to capture biggest title of career at Masters 1000 event in Toronto

Ben Shelton has captured the biggest title of his career at the Masters 1000 event in Toronto, and he did it the hard way, battling back from a set down to beat Karen Khachanov in the final, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (3).

At 22, he's the youngest American to win a Masters 1000 title in more than 21 years, since a 21-year-old Andy Roddick won Miami in 2004.

He's also just the second active American player to have a Masters 1000 title under their belt, after Taylor Fritz, who won Indian Wells in 2022. Shelton actually beat Fritz in the semifinals here on Wednesday night.

"It hasn't really sunk in yet. I'm sure it will in the next couple days," Shelton said. "I'm just happy with my performance today, my level. Karen played a ridiculously good match, and I struggled for so much of the match to deal with the stuff that he was throwing at me.

"To fight from a set down and win this match to win the tournament is pretty special for me and my team. We've been working really hard every day, day in day out, to be competing for big titles like this."

Shelton very nearly won the first set on Thursday night—after originally being down 5-3, he won three straight games and held three set points in Khachanov's 5-6 service game, two at 15-40 and another one at ad-out. Khachanov fought them all off and held, though, and then won the last four points in a row to clinch the opening set in a tie-break.

The match was far from over, though, as Shelton stayed on serve with Khachanov through 4-all in the second set before pouncing, breaking for 5-4 and then holding to send the encounter to a third set.

The two traded holds back and forth throughout the decider, without even a single break point, and eventually found themselves in another tie-break—but this time it was all Shelton, who stormed out to a 3-0 lead, eventually brought up his first match point with a massive forehand down-the-line return winner, then closed it out a few points later after another big forehand that drew an error from Khachanov.

The 22-year-old lefty captured the third and biggest title of his career in Canada, his two previous titles coming at Tokyo in 2023 (an ATP 500 event) and Houston in 2024 (an ATP 250 event).

He's now 3-2 in his career in tour-level finals.