Hershey High School senior Mitch Sheldon began playing tennis at a young age.
This was before he learned to read and write.
“I started when I was about 3 or 4 years old,” Sheldon said. “My brother (Max) and I picked it up early.”
That’s not surprising considering his mother, Christine, played at the University of Wisconsin and his father, Walter, played at Western Illinois University.
It’s a bit shocking how quickly Sheldon grew tired of the sport.
“When I was really young, I tried playing some under-10 tournaments, but I didn’t like it,” he said. “I guess I got burnt out on it at a young age. I was probably playing maybe once a week for fun.”
Sheldon had other interests when he was in elementary school.
“I was really focused on baseball,” he said. “I played lacrosse for a year and a half and was really focused on that.”
But that didn’t last long.
“All of a sudden, I got back into tennis,” Sheldon said. “I’d been playing tennis seriously since I was in the seventh grade.”
Whatever it was that reignited Sheldon’s interest in tennis, it lit the fires of a stellar high school career. Sheldon had a dominant performance at the state tournament, winning the Class 2A singles championship May 25 at Palatine, beating Hinsdale Central High School senior Alex Kotarski 6-3, 6-3.
Top-seeded Sheldon (36-1) won all six of its state tournament matches in straight sets, losing just 13 games.
With the win, Sheldon joins the rare club of players who won a state title in doubles as a sophomore with Kacper Pasilak and finished fourth in singles last year. Sheldon is just the seventh player in Illinois High School Association state tournament history to win both singles and doubles titles since the tournament began in 1911-12.
Five of the other six players achieved the same thing before 1935. Three of them won both titles in the same year, which is no longer recognised.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Sheldon said. “I never expected any of this. Obviously, my goal was to win singles, but it wasn’t until it was all over that I realized how much I accomplished in high school. Winning two state titles is pretty amazing.”
Hershey’s Mitch Sheldon, the Class 2A singles state champion, hits the ball a few times on the Arlington Heights campus on Thursday, May 30, 2024. (Brian O’Mahony/Pioneer Press)
Hershey High School coach Andy Walton said Sheldon’s interest in baseball and lacrosse is actually a good thing.
“It’s important for young kids to be exposed to a variety of sports,” Walton said. “The Sheldons are great people. They’re a great family and they gave their kids the opportunity to do all sorts of other things, but at the end of the day, they went along with the family business. They fell in love with tennis, and that’s great.”
In fact, both Sheldon brothers have reached the highest level of high school baseball: Max Sheldon was a Class 2A state runner-up in singles in 2019 and 2021 and is continuing his career at Michigan State University, where he will be a senior in the fall.
Mitch Sheldon also wants to play for the Spartans and team up with his brother in doubles. Sounds simple enough, but the reality is much different.
“Mitch is the hardest working kid I’ve ever seen,” Walton said. “People see him hitting the ball, serving and pushing people around on the court, but they don’t see all the work that goes on behind it.”
“He plays three hours a day and then comes to practice at Hershey. Even though he motivates himself by playing against pros and USTA players at a higher level, he always comes back to practice for another two or three hours.”
Although Sheldon isn’t always having fun, he doesn’t lose his motivation.
“I’m pretty hard on myself in general,” he said. “I love practicing, but sometimes I’ll go to practice and I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do this right now.'”
“But I’m really motivated. I just want to do the best I can. I just want to keep getting better.”
Even if he had already reached the top of the mountain.
“It doesn’t matter if we’re winning tournaments or not,” Sheldon said, “Even the first day we won the state championship, I was like, ‘Oh, I won the state championship. Now what?’ It’s a progressive mindset, always wanting to do something more.”
In that sense, he is a bit like Rafael Nadal: both are left-handed hitters and both are relentless in their pursuit of greatness.
“He has that trademark lefty,” Sheldon says, “and I also like his mentality of always fighting, never giving up, never getting attached to things.”
Of course, Sheldon is nowhere near the level of Nadal, the 22-time Grand Slam singles champion and the greatest left-hander in tennis history.
“He’s more of a hard worker,” Sheldon says, “and will stay out there for 10 hours if he has to and play crazy points. I’m not as patient. I’m kind of a mix between Ben Shelton and Rafa. I play long points, but I’m also a guy who likes to try things. It depends.”
The recent singles final between Sheldon and Kotarski was a rare occasion when two left-handers competed for a state title, with Sheldon defeating fellow left-hander Nathan Hernandez, a senior at Hinsdale Central High School, 6-2, 6-1 in the semifinals.
Do left-handed people have an advantage?
“Yeah, 100 percent,” Sheldon said. “It’s just a different way of serving. Opponents don’t see it that much, so they’re not used to it.”
Sheldon makes the most of it.
“My serve is great,” he said of his repertoire. “My kick serve has gotten so good that it bounces pretty far the other way, so I can hit an ace on my second serve if I need to.”
“My groundstrokes have a lot of spin and speed, which allows me to push my opponent back to the baseline and keep them from getting ahead.”
So how far can Sheldon go in the future? His older brother’s career trajectory may provide some clues.
“We saw this with Max when he went to Michigan State, and I think we’re seeing this with Mitch,” Walton said. “Mitch puts a lot of effort into conditioning, but I don’t think he does a lot of heavy weight training.
“When Mitch starts weight training like Max did in college, he’ll have a bigger frame that can handle more muscle. He’s hitting the ball really big and heavy now. I’m excited to see how a year of weight training in college will affect his game.”
Hershey’s Mitch Sheldon, the Class 2A singles state champion, takes to the court and practices hitting balls at the Arlington Heights campus on Thursday, May 30, 2024. (Brian O’Mahony/Pioneer Press)
Sheldon, who plans to study business at Michigan State University, doesn’t have any particular career goals.
“It depends on where my skills take me,” he said. “There’s always a way to get better, so if the opportunity arises, maybe I’ll go pro after college. That would be my ultimate goal, but of course it’s going to be very difficult.”
For Sheldon, that never got in the way. He made it a habit to not only raise the bar in his own game, but his team’s, too. He led the Huskies to a second-place finish in 2A with 28 points. Hinsdale Central won its third consecutive team title, but by eight points. New Trier’s Chris Ackerman and Jovan Morales won the 2A doubles title.
It was Hershey’s first state trophy in program history and another accomplishment for Sheldon to celebrate.
He did so for a while.
“Me and my friends have been celebrating nonstop for the last two days,” Sheldon said last week. “We’re still excited, but we’ll probably have to ramp it up again in a couple of days.”
Matt Le Crean is a freelance reporter.
